The research study of auto accident victims that has been reported

was based on intensive psychoanalytic interviewing of the subjects (and some relatives) over an extended period. Cases of male victims of one-car collisions who had been placed on the critical list of the Los Angeles County Hospital were assigned to a group of analytically trained psychiatrists on a non-selective basis (except for exclusion of cases in which obvious organic impairment of the subject or mechanical defect of his automobile were factors in producing the accident). A review of pertinent literature was presented, stressing the findings of Dunbar, Rawson, Alexander, Menninger, and Behan and Hirshfield. The various observations and hypotheses cited were based on eleven case reports meeting certain definite criteria for inclusion in the study.