The Findings of the Tavistock Adult Depression Study (TADS) – CPD event with Psychoanalyst David Taylor

The Tavistock Adult Depression Study has produced good evidence about the value of psychoanalytic psychotherapy for patients with chronic treatment-resistant depressions - a significant mental disorder.

For those who believe in psycho-analysis, to submit it to an RCT can seem like the kind of trial that Kierkegaard saw in the Old Testament story of Abraham’s binding of Isaac: namely, offering up a best-beloved as a sacrifice to the whim of an omnipotent god. However, a proper trial should have the capacity to evoke such archaic anxieties in both the researcher and the clinician. To achieve this benefit, the TADS design used three different methodologies: a randomised controlled trial, qualitative research and clinical psychoanalytic case study investigation. David Taylor will describe the Study, its main  outcome  findings  and  what  the  individual  psychoanalytic  psychotherapy  treatments  reveal.  Time  will  be allowed for discussion from the Floor.

Saturday 6 May, 11 am – 12.30 pm (Coffee and registration at 10.30 am).
Tickets £18 in advance or £20 on the door.

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David Taylor is a Training and Supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society (BPAS). His central work is that of a practising psychoanalyst. He holds a Visiting Professorship at University College, London, Psychoanalysis Unit, and is an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust, where he formerly held several posts including those of its medical director and clinical director of the Tavistock Adult Depression Study (TADS), for which he was responsible from its inception in 2000. A trustee of the Melanie Klein Trust, his other current roles include Chair of the IPA’s Clinical Research Committee and Member of the Board and Council of the BPAS with special responsibility for research. He lectures and teaches widely. Recent papers include discussions of the value of the later works of Bion and the relationship between clinical and empirical forms of enquiry. As well as ongoing studies of depression, current writing includes the relationship between real and ideal objects and the basis of anxiety hysteria.