Psychodynamic Distance Training and Treatment: The China American Psychoanalytic Alliance Research

ABSTRACT

I summarize several studies on the effectiveness of distance training and treatment¹ with Chinese mental health professionals. We found that experts on the average felt that teaching, supervising and treating over video-conferencing (VCON) were only “slightly less effective” than local work. The highest significantly rated indications for treatment over VCON are: “To offer high-quality treatment to underserved or remote patients” and “When patient is house-bound or travel would be impractical.” The highest significantly rated contraindication for treatment over VCON is “Patient needs close observation due to crisis or decompensation.”

The next logical step was to assess the opinions of CAPA graduates about the effectiveness of their distance psychoanalytic training and treatment. We found that the more the graduates used a psychoanalytic formulation was highly correlated with the number of years in distance education and the more days a week in their own therapy. Graduates highly rated the effectiveness of their own psychoanalytic therapy over VCON. The CAPA graduates thought that the therapist variables (warmth, wisdom, empathy, and skillfulness) were far more important in the effectiveness of their treatment than whether the treatment was local or with VCON, or the cultural differences with their therapist. The graduates’ ratings of how they are currently practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapy were highly correlated with how their own therapists practiced psychoanalytic treatment, as measured by the Comparative Psychotherapy Process Scale (CPPS) items.

Dr. Maranda Sze’s preliminary findings from a survey of 163 CAPA students found that they increased from practicing psychodynamic psychotherapy from 55% pre-CAPA to 78% currently, with increased private practice hours, and increase in fees charged. There was also significant increased time in their own psychoanalytic treatment. Overall, these studies show the success of creating a new generation of psychoanalytic therapists in China.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ I will use the term “distance treatment,” but this is interchangeable with other terms as such as “Internet mediated therapy” “remote treatment,” telepsychotherapy,” “Video-conferencing mediated treatment.”

² Thanks to John Fanning for emailing the requests and estimating the number of valid e-mail addresses from the list.

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Robert M. Gordon

Robert M. Gordon, Ph.D., ABPP, is a Diplomate of Clinical Psychology and a Diplomate of Psychoanalysis. He was elected Honorary Member of the American Psychoanalytic Association based on his psychodynamic research. He authored many scholarly articles in the areas of personality assessment, ethics, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, forensic psychology, diagnoses, the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2 where he served as editor and researcher, and coauthored the Psychodiagnostic Chart for the PDM-2.