The well-known difficulties of psycho-analytic research have been met in the research programme of the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic in two ways: (a) the pooling of clinical material among a group of analytic workers; (b) the planned selection of cases. The contention is that the consistent employment of both, singly or in combination with each other, considerably improves the conditions for fact-finding and opens up new opportunities for evaluating, comparing, and verifying data. In this way it is hoped to overcome difficulties due to the comparative absence of specialization in private practice and the impossibility of setting up experiments in analytic work.

The method involves distributing eight to ten patients of similar type simultaneously to an equal number of different analysts, their clinical material being shared by means of constant reporting and comparative work in discussion groups. This