Theory of Change in O.L.I. Integrative Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: From the Interpretation of the Unconscious to the Development of Basic Competencies of Personality

Abstract

This paper examines the theory of change in OLI Integrative Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (OLI IPP), which conceptualizes change as the development of basic developmental competencies of personality, mental operations by which emotionally significant experience is tolerated, understood, and turned into choice and action, rather than solely as an effect of interpreting unconscious contents. Building on psychoanalytic and ego-psychological traditions, OLI IPP further specifies the concept of basic developmental competencies of personality as operational carriers of therapeutic change and links them to work with transference, resistance, and the process of transfer of functions. A taxonomy of therapeutic goals is presented, enabling developmentally structured planning of therapeutic work and the integrative use of techniques from different psychotherapeutic approaches within a unified psychoanalytic framework. The relationship between basic developmental competencies, more complex psychological capacities, and the final outcomes of therapy is explored; in OLI IPP, these outcomes are defined in terms of the capacity for mature love, the capacity for work, and existential tolerance. The paper offers a coherent theoretical and clinical model of change that integrates psychoanalytic understanding of personality with a developmental and integrative approach to the psychotherapeutic process.

Article type

Theoretical-conceptual scientific paper

Volume/Issue

Vol. 3, No. 1 (2026)

Received

August 1, 2026

Accepted

September 1, 2026

Published

September 20, 2026

Pages

37–61

DOI

https://doi.org/10.67978/INSIGHTS.2026.3.2

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