Scientific American Mind – Getting to Know Me – By Jonathan Shedler – Published November/December 2010
Psychodynamic therapy has been caricatured as navel-gazing, but studies show powerful benefits. Jonathan Shedler, PhD, has offered the best meta-analysis and most convincing evidence available that not only is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) not very effective, in general (and that few CBT therapists actually practice manualized CBT), but that psychodynamic is considerably more effective in nearly every measure (see The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, 2010).
For anyone who thinks psychoanalytic therapy is still about laying on a couch with the therapist acting as a “blank slate” and offering little in the way of interaction, aside from abstract interpretations, this article will get you up to speed.