Abstract
This study is the first of a series of three, and represents an Italian systematic replication of previous UK findings (Widdowson 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2013) that investigated the effectiveness of a recently manualised transactional analysis treatment for depression with British clients, using Hermeneutic Single-Case Efficacy Design (HSCED). The various stages of HSCED as a systematic case study research method are described, as a quasi-judicial method to sift case evidence in which researchers construct opposing arguments around quantitative and qualitative multiple source evidences and judges evaluate these for and against propositions to conclude whether the client changed substantially over the course of therapy and that the outcome was attributable to the therapy. The therapist in this case was a white Italian woman with 10 years clinical experience and the client, Sara, was a 62-year old white Italian woman with moderate depression and three recent bereavements, who attended sixteen sessions of transactional analysis therapy. The diagnosis is based on the new DSM-5 criteria that allow differentiation between Depression and Bereavement. The conclusion of the judges was that this was a good-outcome case: the client improved early over the course of the therapy, reported positive experience of therapy and maintained the improvement at the end of the follow-up.
Highlights
This article is the first of a series of three and represents an Italian systematic replication of previous findings in the UK (Widdowson 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2013) supporting the effectiveness of transactional analysis (TA) treatment of depression, under the auspices of the project ‘Toward a transactional analysis psychotherapy recognised as empirically supported treatment: an Italian replication series design’, funded by the European Association of Transactional Analysis (EATA)
This present case study analyses process and outcome of brief treatment of ‘Sara’, a 62-year old Italian woman presenting with depression and bereavement
Since all the material is in Italian language, we adopted here the solution of providing a summary of the main points, as proposed in MacLeod and Elliott (2012)
Summary
This article is the first of a series of three and represents an Italian systematic replication of previous findings in the UK (Widdowson 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2013) supporting the effectiveness of transactional analysis (TA) treatment of depression, under the auspices of the project ‘Toward a transactional analysis psychotherapy recognised as empirically supported treatment: an Italian replication series design’, funded by the European Association of Transactional Analysis (EATA) This present case study analyses process and outcome of brief treatment of ‘Sara’, a 62-year old Italian woman presenting with depression and bereavement. Its clinical efficacy is experienced in the consulting room by thousands of Transactional Analysts every day, research supporting such achievement with empirical evidence was scant and of poor quality until recent years (Khalil, Callaghan & James, 2007). Ohlsson (2010) provided a valuable reference list of TA research studies but a search of that yields no single case efficacy studies
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
More From: International Journal of Transactional Analysis Research & Practice
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.