Editor's Preface

All caregivers agree that it is possible for one human being to be helpful to another who is in emotional distress, and persons of vastly different background, training, and experience attempt to offer symptom relief or cure The concept of cure, however, implies an understanding of the underlying etiology of a disorder and the possession of a specific strategy of intervention that can restore an individual to a state of consistent and enduring non-disturbed functioning Although there is considerable debate as to how psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy provide benefit to patients, there is agreement that the aim of the psychoanalytic therapies is a degree of personality change or growth that will alter symptoms and modify the way in which thoughts, memories, and affects are processed and structured in other words, central internal conflictual themes are modified through the techniques of psychoanalysis.

Several factors associated with cure have been suggested by a review of the literature on psychotherapy: (a) the patient's and the therapist's experience of the helping alliance; (b) the therapist's ability to understand the patient; (c) the patient's ability to achieve an increased level of self-understanding and to make use of the psychological experience involved in this acquisition; (d) a decrease in the pervasiveness of the patient's conflicts; and (e) the patient's ability to work through the gains (L. Luborsky et al., Who Will Benefit from Psychotherapy,  Basic Books, 1988).

In this Special Section Arnold Modell, Anna Ornstein, and Joseph and Anne-Marie Sandler offer some of their own perspectives on psychoanalytic cure, on the process of healing, and on how psychic change is brought about. Each paper illuminates or clarifies the mechanisms associated with the curative factors.

Arnold Modell focuses on how a curative recategorization of memory can be enabled by the experiences of both patient and analyst in a biphasic transference response — that is, one