Short-Term Psychodinamic Psychotherapy with Mentalization-Base Techniques in Major Depressive Disorder patients: Relationshionship among alexithymia, reflective functioning, and outcome variables- A Pilot study

Objectives. In depressed patients, recent advances have highlighted impairment in mentalizing: identifying and interpreting one’s own or other’s mental states. Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (STPP) has proven to be effective in reducing symptoms and improving relational/functional abilities in these subjects. Therefore, the first aim of our study was to evaluate effectiveness of STPP with Mentalization-Based Techniques (STMBP) on their clinical outcomes and the second, to investigate Reflective Functioning and alexithymia concerning treatment outcomes in depressed subjects. Design. Abaselineevaluationofreflectivefunctioning,alexithymiaanddepressionwas conducted before an STMBP treatment. Patients were re-tested successively after 40 weeks (T1) and in a follow-up after 1 year at the end of the treatment (T2). Methods. A total of 24 patients principally diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) underwent a STMBP conducted by two expert therapists. Global Assessment Functioning (GAF), Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) data were collected at the baseline (T0) by two clinical therapists, along with RF scores rated by two trained raters. HAM-D, TAS-20 and GAF follow-ups were conducted at the end of the treatment after 40 weeks (T1) and after 1-year follow-up (T2). Results. ResultshighlightedanimprovementofbothHAM-DandTAS-20scoresinour sample. Moreover, a negative correlation between RF and TAS-20 was found. Both HAM- D and RF at T0 influenced depressive outcomes at the end of the treatment.