TA Treatment of Depression: A Hermeneutic Single-Case Efficacy Design Study - ‘Deborah’

Enrico Benelli,Cristina Capoferri,Arianna Palmieri,Stefano Morena,Vincenzo Calvo,Stefania Mannarini,Mariavittoria Zanchetta,Maddalena Bergamaschi,Maria Spinelli,Mark Widdowson

doi:10.29044/v8i1p39

Abstract

This study is the third 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 (HSCED). Major Depression and Subthreshold Depression are often in comorbidity with Anxiety disorders in childhood and adolescence and represent a risk factor for ongoing mental health problems in adulthood. The therapist was a white Italian woman with 15 years of clinical experience and the client, Deborah, was a 15-year old white Italian female adoloscent who attended sixteen sessions of transactional analysis psychotherapy. The conclusion of the judges was that this was a good-outcome case: the depressive and anxious symptomatology clinically and reliably improved over the course of the therapy and these improvements were maintained throughout the duration of the follow-up intervals. Furthermore, the client reported significant change in her post-treatment interview and these changes were directly attributed to the therapy. In this case study, the transactional analysis manualised treatment for depression in adulthood has demonstrated its effectiveness also in treating depressive and anxiety symptoms in adolescence.

Highlights

This study is the third 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 et al, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c) and was conducted under the auspices of the European Association for Transactional Analysis (EATA) and the University of Padua.Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) affects all age groups, and is considered the fourth leading cause of disability in Europe and North America, calculated by Disability Adjusted Live Years (DALYs) (Murray, Vos, Lazano et al, 2012)
Youth-Self Report (YSR) scores show that the sub-scale anxious/depressed symptoms was above the clinical cut off, whereas the sub-scale thought problems was borderline and the other sub-scales were in the normal range
Internalizing problems scale was in the borderline range and externalizing problems scale and total problems scale were in the normal range

Summary

Introduction

This study is the third 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 et al, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c) and was conducted under the auspices of the European Association for Transactional Analysis (EATA) and the University of Padua.Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) affects all age groups, and is considered the fourth leading cause of disability in Europe and North America, calculated by Disability Adjusted Live Years (DALYs) (Murray, Vos, Lazano et al, 2012). Depression in childhood and adolescence has an estimated prevalence of 2,8% amongst children and 5,9% amongst adolescents (Costello, Erkanli & Angold, 2006). This figure rises to almost 25% of adolescents attending primary care settings, where it is possible to find depressive symptoms below the diagnostic threshold for MDD (but which cause significant distress and impairment in functioning), a condition termed Subthreshold Depression (SD) that is considered on a continuum of severity with MDD. Considering that SD seems to precede MDD and that pre-pubertal onset of MDD leads to worse outcome than onset in adulthood (Van Noorden, Van Fenema, Van der Wee, Zitman & Giltay, 2012), it appears appropriate to develop standardised interventions targeting SD and MDD in childhood and adolescence

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Discussion

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