ANALYTICAL PSYCHODRAMA AS A USEFUL TREATMENT FOR ANXIETY-DEPRESSIVE DISORDERS IN COLLEGE STUDENTS

Introduction: Analytical Psychodrama has shown the potential for obtaining positive change in group members and is reputed by practitioners as an effective form of psychotherapy. Despite this, the lack of empirical validation for its multifarious interventions has contributed to its low visibility amongst contemporary psychotherapy approaches. The main aim of the present study was to explore whether the analytical psychodrama offered by the Counselling Center of the University of Bologna to college students with anxiety-depressive disorders was useful to decrease symptomatology and increase well-being. Method: Thirty patients (22 females) from 20 to 26 years old (mean age 22.33 ± 1.75) with anxiety-depressive disorders took part to the study and completed one year of analytical psychodrama. Participants fulfilled the Italian validation of Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure (CORE-OM, Evans, 2002; Palmieri et al., 2009) questionnaire before and at the end of the group psychotherapy (40 sessions, one a week). Results: Comparing pre and post-treatment CORE-OM mean scores, paired t-test analyses showed a statistically significant reduction on clinical outcomes scores. Specifically, the results revealed the usefulness of the treatment in terms of symptoms decrease and patients’ improvement in subjective well-being. Conclusion: Our preliminary findings suggested that analytical psychodrama is a suitable treatment for college students, as it actually reduces young adults’ anxiety-depressive symptoms. These results contribute to a poorly covered topic on the validity of analytical psychodrama interventions and encourage research regarding the specific psychotherapeutic effects of this method.