Psychosomatic Medicine 18:457-470 (1956)
© 1956 American Psychosomatic Society

Some Influences of an Experimental Situation on the Psychotherapeutic Process

A Report, Based on 44 Treatment Interviews, of the Reactions of a Patient and Therapist to Observation, Recording, and Physiological Measurement

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, Boston, Mass.

This paper has described the integration of a psychophysiological research situation with psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, an integration believed by some to be basically impossible and by others so easy as to be taken for granted.

The thesis advanced by the authors was that the addition of investigative procedures to the therapeutic situation introduces psychodynamic elements of the same order as the specific attributes of the patient, the therapist, and the therapeutic environment and requires consideration as such.

This investigation has utilized self-reporting, direct observation by others and tape recordings of interviews to focus on (1) the consideration as a transference phenomenon of a resistance rationalized as justified by the exposure involved in the simultaneous research environment; (2) the effects on the therapist's intrapsychic and psychotherapeutic functioning; and (3) the study of the psychotherapeutic effect of the total experience on the patient.

Significant psychotherapeutic progress was demonstrated by comparison of psychological tests before and after therapy, the impression of the observers, the judgment of the therapist, and the patient's follow-up reports. The correlation of part of this progress with the working through of the transference resistance provides evidence for the compatibility of a research environment and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy in certain cases. In the case reported here, the specific circumstances appear to have facilitated a more immediately relevant therapeutic experience. The possibility of such positive effects appear rarely if ever to have been described in the literature.

Anxiety occasioned in this therapist by the experimental environment was tolerated without serious impairment of his therapeutic functioning.

Delineation of the scope of application of these conclusions to various categories of patients and therapists awaits the study of additional patient-doctor pairs under observation.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. Simon, G. Fink, M. M. Gill, N. A. Endicott, and I. H. Paul Studies in Audio-Recorded Psychoanalysis: II. The Effect of Recording Upon the Analyst J Am Psychoanal Assoc, January 1, 1970; 18(1): 86 - 101. [PDF]

				A. DiMASCIO and G. W. BROOKS Free Association to a Fantasied Psychotherapist: A Case Report Arch Gen Psychiatry, May 1, 1961; 4(5): 513 - 516. [Abstract] [PDF]

				L. J. ROOSE The Influence of Psychosomatic Research on the Psychoanalytic Process J Am Psychoanal Assoc, April 1, 1960; 8(2): 317 - 334. [PDF]