When Interpretation Is Not Enough: Distinguishing Conflict and Deficit in OLI Integrative Psychodynamic Psychotherapy – Theoretical Considerations and a Longitudinal Single-Case Study with Content Analysis of Diary Entries
Abstract
In psychodynamic psychotherapy interpretation is the central mechanism of change, yet the same intervention helps some clients and not others. The paper proposes that the answer lies in distinguishing the diagnostic assessment of psychopathology from the assessment of functional availability: what the client has, at a given moment, to receive and work through an interpretation.
Building on ego psychology, the paper shows how OLI Integrative Psychodynamic Psychotherapy operationalizes the distinction between intrapsychic conflict and developmental deficit through the concept of basic developmental competencies. The hypothesis is that this availability determines whether conflict is accessible to symbolization, and that its stabilization precedes that accessibility in time.
The hypothesis was examined through a longitudinal single case study with two sources: the therapist's clinical formulation, and a directed content analysis of eighteen client diary entries, independently coded by two raters across twelve codes and four phases.
Conflict and deficit coexisted in the same client; what changed over therapy was not the type of psychopathology but the hierarchical relationship between the two levels: conflict became accessible to symbolization only after the competencies had become functionally available. Developmental work through the therapeutic relationship, and through the transfer of functions, restored the availability of these competencies, and only with it did interpretive work become possible. The contribution lies in the procedure by which availability is tracked over time, and in the finding that the same client shows different blockages on different competencies, so the distinction between conflict and deficit must be posed per
competency, not for the client as a whole.
Keywords: intrapsychic conflict, developmental deficit, basic developmental competencies of the personality, transfer of functions, content analysis
Download PDF
How to cite
Civrić, Đ. (2026). When Interpretation Is Not Enough: Distinguishing Conflict and Deficit in OLI Integrative Psychodynamic Psychotherapy – Theoretical Considerations and a Longitudinal Single-Case Study with Content Analysis of Diary Entries. Insights, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2026), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.67978/INSIGHTS.2026.3.1