Abstract
Clinical samples of child sexual abuse survivors report a variety of psychiatric symptoms and interpersonal difficulties. The treatment outcome literature for this population is often incomplete due to numerous methodological constraints. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an open trial of individual short‐term, psychodynamic psychotherapy with a naturalistic sample of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Sexual abuse survivors demonstrated significant improvement in symptomatic distress, level of functioning and dynamic personality variables according to self‐report measures and clinical rating scales. Abuse survivors developed positive therapeutic alliances, which remained high throughout the course of treatment, and comparable to the non‐abused clinical sample. Sexual abuse survivors' response to treatment was similar to that of non‐abused patients, with the potential for greater change in feelings about the self. These findings demonstrate that psychodynamic psychotherapy may be useful for childhood sexual abuse survivors presenting with depressive symptoms and interpersonal difficulties. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.