Review of Dimensions of psychoanalysis.

Reviews the book, Dimensions of psychoanalysis edited by Joseph Sandler (see record 1990-97786-000). Dimensions of psychoanalysis is a collection of Inaugural Lectures by the sequence of scholars who held the Freud chair in London while it was assigned to visiting dignitaries. The book represents a fertile decade in the history of the discipline. Despite the heterogeneity of the viewpoints contained in the volume, it is striking that some of the most influential intellectual and clinical initiatives of the period are neither represented nor even mentioned in this book. There is no reason to look for comprehensiveness or a balance of viewpoints in a volume commemorating a lecture series, but it is well to remember that psychoanalysis has many dimensions absent from this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Session frequency, regressive intensity, and the psychoanalytic process.

Argues that in most analyses, an increase in frequency will lead to qualitative changes in the data obtained and in the ways each person can use the material. The analysand should generate more associations that focus on the dyadic here and now. Each participant should better understand the other's personalized use of language. More frequent sessions should increase the analysand's sense of the "holding environment" and make a deeper therapeutic regression more likely, thus allowing more frequent access to more archaic material. It should also reduce the analyst's press to intervene or introduce "parameters." Efforts to help the analysand acquire missing psychological skills are more likely to bear fruit in a maximally intensive therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vicissitudes in the psychotherapy of depressive crises.

Depressive crises may drive patients into psychotherapy, but they can also supervene in the course of treatment of patients with severe personality disorders. In such contingencies, pharmacotherapy may be helpful and should never be neglected; however, mastery of the affective crisis is only preparation for dealing psychotherapeutically with its cause. This dynamic usually involves collapse of illusions, either about the perfection of another or about the absence of personal limitations. Psychoanalysis proper is required to eliminate such vulnerabilities and to deal with the patient's defenses against archaic feeling states. The recurrence of these feeling states in the transference may, however, rupture the therapeutic bond. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Single case studies in psychotherapy research.

This article examines the potential role of single case statistical studies in psychotherapy research. Techniques examining averages and trends tend to ignore the fact that not all statistically identical events are qualitatively equivalent and that qualitatively different events may be statistically identical. Single case empirical studies may allow simultaneous quantitative and qualitative explorations that correct for this bias. Intensive single case research allows researchers to choose nonrandom, but theoretically and clinically important, data samples. Such studies also facilitate multidimensional measures–analysis and subtle contextual understanding. This deeper understanding of the single case may then facilitate studies across cases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An empirical approach to studying psychoanalytic process.

This study was a pilot attempt to investigate psychoanalytic process from an empirical perspective. We randomly selected early and late sessions from an audiotaped psychoanalysis (N = 324 sessions) and scored them using a modified form of the Gill-Hoffman (1982) system. We analyzed these scores via Markov models and comparative probability tests. The coding scheme was reliable, although the percentage of interrater agreement for ratings of patient insight was low. Despite this measurement error, the study yielded interesting findings concerning early and late hours. Across early and late sessions, interpretations facilitated patient transference insight, compared to other interventions within the same hours. The patient was somewhat more likely to follow one insight with a second during late hours. There were several other suggestions of longitudinal change toward greater patient mastery. We also explored the interrelationship between type of interpretation and patient productivity of transference insight. The findings indicated that the piloted method represents a useful way to pinpoint theoretically important interactions for empirical investigation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)