The relationship of functional and symptomatic changes after multimodal psychodynamic treatment

Objectives: Personality organization or functioning describes biographically acquired characteristics for the regulation of psychological processes. Limitations correlate with symptom load. This study examines whether significant improvement in personality functioning can be achieved in the framework of a multimodal psychodynamic treatment and its influence on the psychological symptoms. Methods: In this naturalistic study design (N = 318) personality organization was measured with the OPD-SQS and the symptoms were obtained using PHQ-9, GAD-7, SCL-9 and mini-Spin. Changes in the functioning levels were calculated using a t-test. The associations between the functional and symptom improvements were calculated using hierarchical regressionmodels. ANOVAs for dependent samples were used to calculate the association of the personality organization changes on symptom reduction Results: Treatment resulted in significant improvement in personality structure. The greater the changes, the lower the symptom burden at the end of treatment. Patients with lower personality structure benefited equally well from treatment. Conclusion: Personality functioning improves with multimodal psychodynamic therapy and is accompanied by reduction of psychological symptoms. Structural changes proceed equally in high and low structured patients.