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Psychoanalysis has considered the various psychosomatic disorders to be in its therapeutic domain for many years. The pioneer studies of Karush and Daniels (1953), Margolin (1951), and Sperling (1967) were the first of many case reports of patients with such conditions as ulcerative colitis, peptic ulcer, and migraine. The therapeutic goal in these cases is that psychoanalysis will so alter the underlying conflicts that the disease itself will be effected and consequently “cured.”
The treatment of patients with various intercurrent physical illnesses by psychoanalysis or analytic psychotherapy has received less attention. Here somatic cure is not the therapeutic goal. For these conditions it has been felt that supportive psychotherapy, including the use of psychotropic medication, counseling, and advice, can help the patients endure their illness and lessen their suffering. Many psychiatrists in the consultation-liaison area have placed themselves on the medical “team” and consider this the most favorable locus for treating these patients. (Strain and Grossman, 1975).
Psychoanalysts have wondered whether the intercurrent illness is so preoccupying that it would interfere with a thorough and orderly exploration of the individual's intrapsychic life. The very practical issues of patients coming for regular appointments and maintaining themselves in a psychotherapeutic setting while a serious physical illness is in progress seems to present insurmountable difficulties. Workers have recently described the unique countertransference problems that are evoked by patients with structural and organic disease.
The author undertook an uncovering psychotherapy, and although not a full analysis, it resembled psychoanalysis in many ways. The