Progressive changes in patients' lives after psychotherapy: which treatment effects support them?

The endurance of psychotherapeutic effects after conclusion of inpatient treatment is examined in a follow-up study of 49 patients with psychosomatic, neurotic, and personality disorders. The perspective is not symptomatological but rather relates to the concrete changes occurring in the lives of the patients after treatment. The investigators hypothesized that the probability of progressively coping with life demands depends on the extent to which patients have gained insight into their central psychological problems. Using the Heidelberg Structural Change Scale (HSCS) to gauge the extent to which patients succeed in gaining cognitively and emotionally definitive insight into their intrapsychic conflicts and the structural vulnerabilities determining their condition, the authors were able to confirm their hypothesis. The HSCS, compared with other measures, offered the only possibility of predicting progressive (i.e., symptomatic) changes. The authors concluded that the demands of external life present opportunities for therapy success to be realized as progressive changes and that these changes can form a basis for further positive development.