Selection criteria for individual dynamic psychotherapies

The authors discuss the indications, contraindications, and enabling factors for four types of psychodynamically informed psychotherapy: supportive, focal, exploratory, and psychoanalysis. They outline the inherent and practical difficulties impeding psychotherapy outcome studies and summarize the limited research regarding psychodynamic treatments. The overall efficacy of psychotherapy has been documented, but to date studies have not demonstrated specific differential effectiveness and indications. The authors present the rationale for each of the four approaches and suggest ways of selecting among them.