The Psychoanalytic Process: Theory, Clinical Observation and Empirical Research: Joseph Weiss, Harold Sampson, and the Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group,  The Guilford Press, New York and London, 1986,  423 pp.

Joseph Weiss, M.D. and Harold Sampson, Ph.D., co-directors of the Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group, enjoy a well-deserved reputation as leaders in the field of psychotherapy research. Their book The Psychoanalytic Process illustrates why this is so. Innovative investigators, Weiss and Sampson are also sensitive, experienced psychoanalytic clinicians. Since some of the chapters on research were written by members of the Mount Zion group other than Weiss and Sampson, the uniformly clear style is a particular virtue.

The first section of The Psychoanalytic Process, written entirely by Weiss, deals with clinical theory. In reviewing Freud's theories of psychopathology, Weiss notes that Freud's early ideas about conflict between forces operating in a closed system are still quite influential.

[The early theory] assumes that almost all unconscious mental life may be derived from the interplay of psychic forces, which interact without regard for thought or current reality and are beyond the patient's control. (p. 342)

Weiss's theory rejects Freud's early paradigm and instead is derived from Freud's later ideas on ego functioning, especially those put forth in The Outline of Psychoanalysis (1940).

The other theory we tested (the one we favor) is a logically consistent clinical theory based on the higher mental functioning hypothesis. It is the theory developed by Weiss and presented in Part I. Though it does not rule out all automatic functioning, it assumes that a person exerts considerable control over his unconscious mental life and that he regulates it in accordance with thoughts, beliefs, and assessments of current reality. The fact that the two theories we have tested are more or less internally consistent and tightly organized has contributed to our being able rigorously to test the one against the other.… (p. 342)

The theoretical section of The Psychoanalytic Process is simultaneously a contribution in its own right and also an introduction to the research that co