The History and Current Status of Outcome Research at the Anna Freud Centre

Abstract

In past decades there have been impressive systematic studies of the outcome of the psychoanalysis across groups of patients and analysts, but the studies carried out to date have almost all been with adult patients. There is very little information even on the short-term outcome of psychoanalytic treatment for children. The information that does exist has largely emerged from the research tradition of the Anna Freud Centre (formerly the Hampstead Clinic) in London. The paper surveys the early studies and details the current program of research at the AFC, providing a review of fifteen years of work on the outcomes of child psychoanalytic therapy.