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Psycho-analytic interest in theories of cure is naturally directed for the most part to the curative processes occurring in analytic treatment: the therapeutic effect of other methods is, nowadays at any rate, more a matter of general psychological interest. In earlier times, of course, it was necessary to pay special attention to the theoretical significance of non-analytic psychotherapy. Statements were frequently bandied about that psycho-analysis was nothing more than camouflaged suggestion: moreover, the fact that analytic method was based on experiences derived from situations of rapport between physician and patient, as for example, in hypnosis, made some theoretical differentiation desirable. Most discussions of the 'resolution of transference' can be regarded as contributions to this problem, affording a rough but serviceable distinction between analytic and other therapeutic methods. And the special studies of Freud (1) on group psychology, Ferenczi (2) on transference, Ernest Jones (3) on suggestion and auto-suggestion, Abraham (4) on Couéism and an unfinished study by Radó (5) on the processes of cure, have given a broader theoretical basis to this differentiation.
Nevertheless we are periodically stimulated to reconsider the relations between different forms of psychotherapy, more particularly when any advance is made in analytic knowledge. When such advances occur we are bound to ask ourselves, 'what happened to our cases before we were in a position to turn this fresh knowledge to