Abstract
This study is the second of a series of seven, and belongs to the second Italian systematic replication of findings from two previous series (Widdowson 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2013; Benelli, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c) that investigated the effectiveness of a manualised transactional analysis treatment for depression through Hermeneutic Single-Case Efficacy Design. The therapist was a white Italian woman with 10 years of clinical experience and the client, Caterina, was a 28-year old white Italian woman who attended 16 sessions of transactional analysis psychotherapy. Caterina satisfied DSM-5 criteria for major depressive disorder with generalized anxiety disorder. The conclusion of the judges was that this was an outstanding good-outcome case: the depressive symptoms showed an early clinical and reliable improvement, maintained till the 6 months follow-up, accompanied by reductions in anxiety symptoms, global distress and severity of personal problems. Adherence to the manualised treatment for depression appears good to excellent. In this case study, transactional analysis treatment for depression has proven its efficacy in treating major depressive disorder in comorbidity with anxiety disorder.
Highlights
This study is the second of a series of seven, and belongs to the second Italian systematic replication of findings from two previous case series (Widdowson 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2013; Benelli, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c) and was conducted under the auspices of the European Association for Transactional Analysis (EATA) and the University of Padua.Transactional analysis (TA) is a widely-practiced form of psychotherapy, supported with a vast literature, but still it is under-recognised within the worldwide scientific community of psychotherapy
A wide community of researchers proposed that efficacy and effectiveness in psychotherapy are a complex object that cannot be adequately evaluated with either the experimental approach of Randomised Clinical Trial (RCT) (Norcross, 2002; Westen, Novotny & Thomson-Brenner, 2004) or classical SCED (McLeod, 2010)
Affirmative Conclusion Caterina’s depression, anxiety, global distress and personal problems were tied to childhood experiences of being devaluated when she was taking decisions, which led the client to have many difficulties in interpersonal patterns and intrapsychic patterns relating to inner experience, emotions, self-esteem
Summary
This study is the second of a series of seven, and belongs to the second Italian systematic replication of findings from two previous case series (Widdowson 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2013; Benelli, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c) and was conducted under the auspices of the European Association for Transactional Analysis (EATA) and the University of Padua.Transactional analysis (TA) is a widely-practiced form of psychotherapy, supported with a vast literature (for a review see Ohlsson, 2010), but still it is under-recognised within the worldwide scientific community of psychotherapy. In order to define TA psychotherapy as an efficacious Empirically Supported Treatment (EST), its efficacy must have been established in at least one Randomised Clinical Trial (RCT) replicated by two independent research groups, or alternatively in at least three Single Case Experimental Design studies (SCED), replicated by at least two independent research groups, with each group conducting a case series of a minimum of three cases, without conflicting evidence (Chambless & Hollon, 1998). Considering that approaches without evidence from RCTs tend to be under-recognised, Stiles, Hill and Elliott (2015) proposed collecting a series of mixed methods systematic single case studies as the first step toward recognition of marginalised and emerging models of psychotherapy
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