Multi-Level Outcome Study of Psychoanalyses for Chronically Depressed Patients with Early Trauma

Funded by the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) and the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), the Alfred Berman Foundation and the Robert S. Wallerstein Fellowship to Psychoanalytic Research, funding amount: €248,561

Principal Investigator IPU

Prof. Dr. Tamara Fischmann

Principal Investigator (external)

Prof. Dr. Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber (Mainz University )
Prof. Bradley Peterson (CHLA Los Angeles, USA)
Dr. Gilles Ambresin (CHUV Lausanne, Switzerland)
Cheryl Goodrich & Klaus Poppensieker (SFCP, San Francisco)
Bart Blinder & Linda Goodman (NCP, Los Angeles)
Prof. Dr. Nikolai Axmacher (Bochum University)

Project Description

This multi-site investigation explores the outcomes of high-frequency and low-frequency psychoanalysis in patients with early trauma and chronic depression stemming from childhood trauma. Patients are randomly assigned to one of the two treatment conditions and the therapists in the study follow a provided treatment manual. The central hypothesis posits that high-frequency treatment has a normalizing impact on brain function, and that these changes contribute to clinical improvement within a year. The primary goal is to demonstrate a tangible reduction in depressive symptoms after one year, particularly in high-frequency treatment, in terms of depressive (QIDS-C) and psychological symptoms (BDI-2, SCL-90, DEQ), as well as changes at a structural level (OPD), personality (IIP) and level of functioning (GAF). Furthermore, neurobiological changes (fMRI) will be analysed.

Original language: German, English, French

Participating Researchers

Study therapists from the psychoanalytic institutes of: 

  • Frankfurt a.M
  • Cologne/Düsseldorf
  • Leipzig
  • Giessen
  • Lausanne
  • Los Angeles/San Francisco

Duration

Project Start: 01/2019
Project End: 12/2026

Links

hogrefe.com/de/shop/chronische-depression-95170.html

Publications

  • Ambresin, G., Leuzinger-Bohleber, M., Fischmann, T., Axmacher, N., Hattingen, E., Bansal, R., & Peterson, B. S. (2023). The multi-level outcome study of psychoanalysis for chronically depressed patients with early trauma (MODE): rationale and design of an international multicenter randomized controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry, 23(1), 844. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-023-05287-6
  • Leuzinger-Bohleber, M., Donié, M., Wichelmann, J., Ambresin, G. & Fischmann, T. (2023). Changes in dreams - the development of a dream-transformation scale in psychoanalyses with chronically depressed, early traumatized patients. The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review,  46(1-2), 82-93. doi: 10.1080/01062301.2023.2297116
  • Leuzinger-Bohleber, M., Fischmann, T., & Beutel, M. E. (2022). Chronische Depression: Analytische Langzeitpsychotherapie (Vol. 12): Hogrefe Verlag GmbH & Company KG.
  • Fischmann, T., Leuzinger-Bohleber, M., & Ambresin, G. (2022). Memory re-consolidation and dreaming: Shadows of the night. In M. Leuzinger-Bohleber, G. Ambresin, T. Fischmann, M. Solms (Eds):  On the Dark Side of Chronic Depression (pp. 133-143): Routledge.
  • Leuzinger-Bohleber, M., Ambresin, G., Fischmann, T., Solms, M. (2022) On the Dark Side of Chronic Depression: Psychoanalytic, socio-cultural and research approaches. Routledge
  • Fischmann, T., Ambresin, G., & Leuzinger-Bohleber, M. (2021). Dreams and Trauma Changes in the Manifest Dreams in Psychoanalytic Treatments–A Psychoanalytic Outcome Measure, Frontiers in psychology,12.