Keying-in to Therapy

The editors are eternally grateful to Abe Brafman that the following has been rescued from oblivion. He writes:

The Cassel Hospital has always had the tradition of admitting ‘only’ patients of superior intelligence. True, it is conceivable that such a myth was created by the staff themselves, But it is also true that the fact that patients were only admitted for psychotherapy led to referrers assuming that only their more intelligent patients would be taken on for treatment. As the 1960's wore on, the Cassel had a very high number of university students as in-patients and this may have been one of the reasons why the patients created a publication that brought out many interesting articles. It seems that such a venture is part of a recurring pattern in the Hospital history but SIC, as it was called, had a particularly high standard in its contributions.

The issue of May 1969 contained the following guide to psychoanalytic terminology. As will be seen, its applicability goes well beyond the confines of a hospital in-patient community and we felt such a brilliant piece of work should be shared with our readers.

If you are baffled by psychoanalytic terminology or confused by pseudo-psychoanalytic jargon your worries are now over. SICs research staff have been studying the Honeywell Computer's SIMP system (that is, Simplified Modular Prose writing.) They have now come up with a psychiatric version called FEEL (Further Eludidation of Elemental Linguistics). All you have to do if stuck for something to say in a session or group meeting is to think of any 4 digit number, and take appropriately numbered phrases from each of the four tables and there you are. For example 9002 comes out as ‘On the other hand the function of clinical groups should not blind us to the negative aspects of psychotherapy’. Once you get good at it you don't even need to say the sentence, just give the relevant 4 digit number. But 4845.