[On the efficacy of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for complex psychological disorders]

Rief and Hofmann (Nervenarzt 80:593-597) criticize in a very detailed comment our meta-analysis of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (JAMA 300:1551-1565). Although our article clearly included information that our meta-analysis addressed long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy of at least 50 sessions or at least 1 year duration, Rief and Hofmann allege that we studied "psychoanalysis" or "long-term psychoanalysis". Then they "show" for some of the studies we included that these studies did not address "psychoanalysis" or "long-term psychoanalysis" - which they did indeed not, but had never been claimed by us. For all other points of criticism put forward by the authors we show that they are not tenable as well. In addition, we show that Rief and Hofmann use omissions and allegations that give the impression that we deliberately violated principles of good scientific practice. This is reputation-damaging behaviour that clearly goes beyond a scientific discussion among researchers and constitutes a special act which itself violates the principles of good scientific practice.