Papers by Oscar Heyerdahl
Tidsskrift for den Norske lægeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny række, Jan 20, 1998
Tidsskrift for den Norske lægeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny række, Jan 10, 1999
Tidsskrift for den Norske lægeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny række, Jan 20, 1986
Tidsskrift for den Norske lægeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny række, Jan 10, 1988
The Journal of psychotherapy practice and research, 1993
The authors examined whether persistent analysis of the patient-therapist relationship in brief d... more The authors examined whether persistent analysis of the patient-therapist relationship in brief dynamic psychotherapy favorably affects long-term dynamic change in patients initially deemed suitable for such treatment. As in common practice, 22 highly suitable patients were given a high number of transference interpretations per session. A comparison group of 21 patients with lower suitability received the same treatment, but transference interpretations were withheld. Statistical adjustment for the deliberate nonequivalence in pretreatment suitability indicated a significant negative effect of high numbers of transference interpretations on long-term dynamic changes. Demographic variables, DSM-III diagnoses, additional treatment, life events in the follow-up years, or therapist effects did not explain or obscure the findings.
Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 1978
Forfatteren har nettopp tiltradt stilling som ass. overlege ved Oslo Helserad avd. for psykiatri.... more Forfatteren har nettopp tiltradt stilling som ass. overlege ved Oslo Helserad avd. for psykiatri.Han har sin utdannelsestid i ferskt minne, og gav mai 1976 nedenstaende synspunkter pa de veiledetes situasion.
Tidsskrift for Den norske legeforening, 2019
The Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, Feb 1, 2000
The Journal of psychotherapy practice and research, 1993
Forty-three neurotic outpatients were treated according to common practice with dynamic psychothe... more Forty-three neurotic outpatients were treated according to common practice with dynamic psychotherapy of brief to moderate length. Suitability for brief dynamic psychotherapy, measured by quality of interpersonal relations, was independent of DSM-III diagnoses. Suitability was a significant direct predictor of symptomatic and dynamic change 2 and 4 years after therapy. Treatment length added no explained outcome variance over patient characteristics. However, patients with high suitability had a relatively more favorable dynamic outcome with a brief, focused treatment approach, whereas patients with low suitability had relatively more favorable outcome with a longer, less focused treatment of more than 1 year's duration. The significant interaction emerged at 4-year follow-up.
The Journal of psychotherapy practice and research, 2000
Five scales have been developed to assess changes that are consistent with the therapeutic ration... more Five scales have been developed to assess changes that are consistent with the therapeutic rationales and procedures of dynamic psychotherapy. Seven raters evaluated 50 patients before and 36 patients again after brief dynamic psychotherapy. A factor analysis indicated that the scales represent a dimension that is discriminable from general symptoms. A summary measure, Dynamic Capacity, was rated with acceptable reliability by a single rater. However, average scores of three raters were needed for good reliability of change ratings. The scales seem to be sufficiently fine-grained to capture statistically and clinically significant changes during brief dynamic psychotherapy.
British Journal of Medical Psychology, 1994
Psychoanalytic theory holds that dynamic insight is used for self-observation and self-analysis d... more Psychoanalytic theory holds that dynamic insight is used for self-observation and self-analysis during and after explorative therapy. Such self-analysis is held to lead to stable dynamic change. Within a sample of 43 moderately disturbed out-patients, pre-treatment level of insight was associated with treatment length, with not being an early or late drop-out, and with receiving additional psychotherapy during a four-year follow-up period. Pre-treatment level of insight turned out to be not directly correlated with outcome two and four years after therapy. However, level of insight was significantly correlated with outcome in interaction with treatment length. Gain of insight measured at two-year follow-up was the strongest predictor of overall dynamic change four years after therapy, compared with all the other outcome assessments made at two-year follow-up.
American Journal of Psychiatry, 2006
Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 1992
Dynamic change in psychotherapy, as measured by theory-related or mode-specific instruments, have... more Dynamic change in psychotherapy, as measured by theory-related or mode-specific instruments, have been criticized for being too intercorrelated with symptomatic change measures. In this study, long-term changes after brief dynamic psychotherapy were studied in 45 moderately disturbed neurotic patients by a reliable outcome battery. The factor structure of all the change variables suggested that they tapped 2 distinct and stable sources of variance: dynamic and symptomatic change. The categories of overall dynamic change were different from categories of change on the Global Assessment Scale. A small systematic difference was found between the categories of overall dynamic change and the categories of target complaints change also, due to false solutions of dynamic conflicts.
Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care, 2014
Tidsskrift for Den norske legeforening, 2017
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 1994
The clinical proposition that an ideal focus for intensive brief dynamic psychotherapy is an intr... more The clinical proposition that an ideal focus for intensive brief dynamic psychotherapy is an intra-psychic conflict rooted in oedipal pathology with circumscribed effects on personality functioning has been widely accepted a priori, without empirical validation. In this study 4 clinical raters assessed the 'degree of circumscribed conflict' and 'hypothesized psychosexual development level' from a dynamic evaluation interview. The variables were only marginally associated with DSM-III diagnoses. Within a subsample of 22 patients treated with intensive psychoanalytic technique, patients with whom a highly circumscribed conflict could be identified had the most favourable dynamic change 4 years after therapy.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 2010
Objective: According to psychoanalytic theory, interpretation of transference leads to increased ... more Objective: According to psychoanalytic theory, interpretation of transference leads to increased insight that again leads to improved interpersonal functioning over time. In this study, we performed a full mediational analysis to test whether insight gained during treatment mediates the long-term effects of transference interpretation in dynamic psychotherapy. Method: This study is a randomized clinical trial with a dismantling design. One hundred outpatients seeking psychotherapy for depression, anxiety, personality disorders, and interpersonal problems were randomly assigned to 1 year of weekly sessions of dynamic psychotherapy with transference interpretation or to the same type and duration of treatment with the same therapists but without the use of transference interpretation. Interpersonal functioning and insight were measured pretreatment, posttreatment, and 1 year and 3 years after treatment termination. Results: Contrary to common expectation, patients with a life-long pattern of low quality of object relations and personality disorder pathology profited more from therapy with transference interpretation than from therapy with no transference interpretation. This long-term effect was mediated by an increase in the level of insight during treatment. Conclusions: Insight seems to be a key mechanism of change in dynamic psychotherapy. Our results bridge the gap between clinical theory and empirical research.
American Journal of Psychiatry, 2008
Objective: Transference interpretation has remained a core ingredient in the psychodynamic tradit... more Objective: Transference interpretation has remained a core ingredient in the psychodynamic tradition, despite limited empirical evidence for its effectiveness. In this study, the authors examined longterm effects of transference interpretations.
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Papers by Oscar Heyerdahl