A systematic method of clinical observation is offered for research into the conditions surrounding the creation of memory, psychosomatic, and other symptoms. The symptom-context method is a way of collecting and analyzing symptoms which form during psychotherapy sessions and comparing these with control (nonsymptom) sessions. Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis offer an almost unique situation in which an observer (preferably aided by a tape recorder) is presented with a sufficient number of times on the rare occasions when a symptom emerges under one's eyes, and while the patient is revealing much of what he is experiencing.

Two conditions were found necessary for the onset of a symptom: (a) a particular type of immediate thought; (b) a larger background