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Counter-Transference in Group Analysis. Hugh Mullan. Feb. 8, 1953.
Therapy of Self-Effacement. Harold Kelman. April 12, 1953. To be published.
“Didactic” Analysis. Elizabeth Kilpatrick. May 10, 1953. Published in this issue under the title, Training Analysis.
Screening in a Psychoanalytic Clinic Setting. Sara Breitbart, October 12, 1952.
Criteria for the selection of patients in a psychoanalytic clinic can be arrived at from two points of view: Analyst-patient productivity, or physical limitations. Focusing on the physical aspects of time and place with a minimum focus on productivity would result in minimal screening directed toward the diagnosing and possible rejection of such applicants as cannot be treated adequately under a clinic setting. Such diagnoses are those of: obvious psychosis which might require hospital care; acute or severe alcoholism or drug addiction; litigants or known trouble makers; violent and assaultive patients. All other applicants would be accepted in the order of their application and the number would be limited by analyst-hours available. In those clinics in which screening is minimally on the “analyst-patient productivity” factor, much waste of time and effort has resulted.
If the focus is on maximum productivity rather than on the number of patients that can be seen or on the physical limitations of the clinic, the frame of reference shifts to a search for and assessment of those factors within patient and analyst which lead to maximum productivity.
The first question the screening analyst would ask would be, “Is this patient interested enough in his own growth to come frequently and regularly for a number of years?” Direct questioning could give some clue as to the strength of the patient's incentive. His life history, efforts he has made in the past to further himself, efforts at gaining insight and awareness of his own personality as a force in his own life can give information as to incentive. A more or less constant search for ways thro