Ansätze zur empirischen Forschung in der Klientenzentrierten Psychotherapie in Österreich

Abstract

Attempts to Research in Client-Centered Psychotherapy in Austria. After giving a short overview about empirical research on client-centered psychotherapy world-wide and about research in the Austrian association for person-centered psychotherapy (ÖGWG) we are going to focus on two recent ÖGWG research projects. Study 1” was focused towards demographic data and was intended to provide a snapshot of client-centred therapies in Austria today. We acquired statistical from 2028 clients as well as 68 (out of 468 contacted) ÖGWG psychotherapists. After excluding 50 data sets from ÖGWG psychotherapy candidates (training therapy) the most prevalent diagnoses included adjustment disorder (F43; 24 %), depression (F32, F33; 22 %) and anxiety disorder (F40, F41; 12 %) while 9 % did not have a clinical indication. In “study 2”, evaluating psychotherapy process and outcome, we focused on changes in clinical symptoms as well as in emotional experiencing. Specifically, we used the “brief symptom inventory” (BSI) and the “Scales for Experiencing Emotions” (SEE) at three sampling points, at the beginning of therapy, after about 15 hours and at the end of therapy. Significant changes after only 15 hours (N = 44) were found across all BSI symptom scales as well as across most SEE scales. At the end of psychotherapy specifically the BSI measurements do not only indicate statistically significant but also clinically relevant changes.