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This paper reports an experiment in therapy with twenty-five patients who had skin lesions considered to be the result of rubbing, scratching, and picking
at the skin. The therapy was direct and directive; the patients were induced to ventilate anger over their current preoccupations. The therapist then attempted to redirect the anger and rage into different channels. The rationale of this experiment is the so-called dynamic formulation that these patients are sensitive and have feelings of inferiority and an excessive need for love; the frustrations caused by such threats as loss of love and of status are reacted to with rage followed by guilt. The skin lesion is a masochistic hysterical symptom. In the thirteen pages of the article, the author gives his clinical material, his dynamic formulation, his method, results and criteria, several tables, and his discussion, while the appendix of twenty-eight pages gives an account of each of the twenty-five patients and his therapy. This abstracter is impressed by the format of the paper and the cautious, scientific account of the experiment, with a self-critical attitude which warns against the indiscriminate use of the method. There nevertheless seems to be no awareness that the dynamic formulation of the problem, the basis upon which the experiment was undertaken, is inadequate.