Abstract
Background: A growing body of empirical studies supports the relevance of intersubjective, narrative, and self-reflective processes in the genesis and treatment of depression. The results obtained in the psychotherapeutic process of the Direct Approach to the Unconscious Method in a Personal Integration Therapy allow for the clarification and understanding of the psychic process of configuration of depression and its possibilities of reconfiguration.
Aims: To investigate the maintenance of results obtained in participants submitted to the Direct Approach to the Unconscious Method within Personal Integration Therapy; to understand how primary intersubjective bonds are configured; and to describe the experiential processes involved in the participants’ reconfigurations.
Methods: This mixed-methods study administered the Beck Depression Inventory (Second Edition) at the beginning and at the end of the psychotherapeutic process to all participants. Subsequently, the Beck Depression Inventory–II was administered to a selected group (n = 27) for longitudinal analysis, conducted three and six months after completion of the psychotherapeutic process. The nonparametric Friedman test was used, complemented by the Wilcoxon signed-rank test with Bonferroni correction for post hoc analyses.
Qualitative data were collected throughout the psychotherapeutic process itself, and the evidenced content was analyzed through Psychological-Phenomenological analysis.
Results: In the previous study, individual trajectory analyses indicated strong treatment effects at post-treatment. Across follow-up assessments, treatment gains showed partial attenuation but remained below baseline levels overall. Mean symptom reduction relative to baseline was 48.2% at 3 months and 52.7% at 6 months. The pattern of "Continuous Improvement" predominated over time, observed in 74.1% of participants, suggesting stabilization of results and consolidation of changes in the dynamics of meaning within lived-experience.
Conclusion: Depression suffering cannot be fully reduced to a naturalistic psychophysical understanding, as they involve the structural unity and self-formation processes of the Human Person within intersubjective contexts. Phenomenological Psychology provides intelligibility to this phenomenon, and the said Method may contribute as an intervention tool for the understanding and treatment of depressive suffering.