Momentos associados à mudança em psicoterapia psicanalítica de adultos

Abstract

The present thesis addresses the Change in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and consists of two studies in accordance with the regulations of the Psychology Graduate Program, Faculty of Psychology, Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). The first study which comprises this thesis is a literature review, entitled Process Research in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, which aimed to conduct a literature review in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and process research in psychotherapy, highlighting the psychoanalytic psychotherapy. For this study, literature searches in various databases, such as SciELO, Lilacs, PsycInfo and IndexPsi were conducted. Although there is a gap between research and clinic, the search results showed that there are many studies in this area internationally, but there is a lack of Brazilian studies in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, as well as other modalities of psychotherapy. The small amount of research about the process and outcome in psychotherapy in Brazil expresses the no tradition of national studies of this nature and, therefore, efforts become necessary and relevant to unite clinicians and researchers in psychotherapy research, especially on psychotherapeutic process. The second study is an empirical qualitative approach with a systematic single case study design (SCS) (Edwards, 2007) with the title of Assessment of change in psychotherapy. The aim of this study was to analyze three sessions from the intermediate period of a twenty-one-session process of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in order to examine the process of change in a case of a young woman. For this, both the Therapeutic Cycles Model (TCM) instrument to identify turning points in the therapeutic process, and the audio of the case discussions of a clinical supervision group where the case was being taken cared of were used. During the analysis of the three sessions of this therapeutic process, seven therapeutic treatment cycles relevant to the understanding of change were found. Such cycles were deeply studied using the method of content analysis proposed by Bardin (1977/2007) in order to understand how the change in the patient during treatment was, supported by psychodynamic understanding arising from the supervision material of the case. The results indicate that the combination of objective measures derived from the analysis of cycles by TCM associated with those based on clinical judgment through group supervision analysis are useful for assessment and consequent understanding of the change occurred during the treatment because they enabled a broader and deeper view of the case.