Interpretation in psychodynamic psychotherapy: A systematic review

Abstract

Interpretation is a specific technique and it is one of the many components of psychodynamic psychotherapy’s processes. This systematic review aims to investigate the effectiveness of different types of interpretations (e.g. relative to transference, dreams and symptoms) for patients with different disorders and identifying the possible moderators and mediators between the interpretations and the outcome. We adopted the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines for undertaking systematic reviews. We selected nine RCTs and one quasi-experiment investigating the role of transference, dreams and panic-symptoms interpretations. Studies’ range from the years 1983 to 2016. Regarding the results, transference, dreams and symptoms interpretations are effective to lead to a positive outcome in the majority of the studies. Furthermore, psychodynamic psychotherapy with interpretations is superior to control groups but not to comparison groups or to psychodynamic psychotherapy without the interpretations in almost every outcome. Nevertheless, a lot of patients and therapists’ characteristics, as well as the relationship between them, can influence the transference interpretations – outcome relationship. Finally, we could state that interpretations are clinically useful when therapists know how and when them should be utilised.