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After preliminary experimental work with caffeine, theophylline and metrazol, Agoston employed benzedrine to overcome resistances at the beginning or in the course of formal psychoanalysis. Doses of five to fifteen mgms. were given
about one and one half hours before the analytic session. This procedure was employed in various types of patients with excellent results. The effect in releasing both data and emotion was quite dramatic in some cases, bringing the patient 'over the hump' and permitting progress after stalemate. Agoston repeatedly stresses that the benzedrine is simply an adjuvant and of value only when employed in conjunction with the usual 'working through' of psychoanalysis.
One wonders whether the same results could not have been achieved without drugs had adequate attention been given to the analysis of the resistance and whether the factual data obtained with drugs can prove of as lasting benefit as that resulting from a more active participation of the patient's ego in analyzing his resistances. These theoretical objections do not of course concern cases of severe schizoids, drug addicts, or others whose resistance to treatment have hitherto proved insuperable.