The present research evaluates the effectiveness of psychodynamic counselling for university students. The clinical group is made up of 79 students who asked for help at the Psychological Counselling Service of the University of Bari. They took part to 5 sessions of psychodynamic counselling, once per week, with a psychodynamic psychotherapist. The non-clinical group (control group) is made up of 79 students matching the clinical participants as long as sex, age and faculty are concerned. They had never taken part to any psychological treatment. All the students were asked to complete twice the Adjective Check List (ACL: Gough and Heilbrun, 1980). They completed it for the second time five weeks after the first. The analysis of results shows that non-clinical participants experienced no change, while clinical participants, after the treatment, improved their well-being, even though they experienced a decrease of their creativity.
Keywords: Counselling, psychodynamics, university, effectiveness, outcome