Research on Adolescent Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Process: An Italian Contribution to the Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-Set (APQ)

ABSTRACT

This article aims to increase our understanding of how adolescence psychodynamic therapists view an ideally conducted psychotherapy session from their theoretical point of view. 82 therapists from different psychodynamic approaches provided ratings of the 100 APQ items to describe an ideally conducted psychotherapy process that adheres to the principles of their treatment model. Data analysis included Factor and Q-factor analyses with varimax rotation, spearman correlation, and Chi-Square test. Five main features of therapeutic work with adolescents were found. Common and specific features of different psychodynamic approaches were highlighted. Four empirically derived therapeutic attitudes were also found. From the theoretical perspective of psychodynamic clinicians, APQ can be used to describe therapeutic process with the adolescent patient. It can also highlight the heterogeneity among psychodynamic therapists and reliably gathering therapists into different perspective of psychotherapy process. Future researchers can use these results to explore therapeutic process in actual sessions.

Acknowledgments

All the colleagues who participated, without whom this research could not have taken place, supported the present contribution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Italian Group Association (AGIPPsA).

Notes on contributors

Mauro Di Lorenzo

Mauro Di Lorenzo, psychotherapist, member of the “Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR)”. Project coordinator at the Study and Research Centre for Adolescence of the Institute “Minotauro”, Milan. Assistant at the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy.

Alfio Maggiolini, psychotherapist and professor of Life-Cycle Psychology at the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy. Director of the Psychotherapy Training at “Minotauro”, Milan.