Meeting of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

May 25, 1954. INDICATIONS AND CONTRAINDICATIONS REGARDING THE APPLICATION OF THE 'STANDARD TECHNIQUE'; DYNAMIC, ECONOMIC AND STRUCTURAL CONSIDERATIONS. AN ATTEMPT AT CORROBORATION BY CLINICAL EXAMPLES. Jan Frank, M.D.

Beginning with the thesis that the 'neutral' and 'equidistant' psychoanalyst is a theoretical ideal which is actually never achieved in practice, Dr. Frank believes that psychoanalysis consists of a greater or lesser mixture of psychotherapeutic maneuvers made necessary by the exigencies and unique qualities of each individual case. To think about the matter otherwise 'would risk being caught in a sterility of ritualism despite avowals to the contrary'. Dr. Frank fears that 'technique becomes something sacred like a religious devotion'. He feels that the clinical spectrum of the cases treated these days has shifted more and more from the symptom neuroses toward the more or less severe character disorders, thus necessitating a concomitant revision of technical attitudes. In this regard Dr. Frank is largely addressing himself to what he calls 'emotional detachment' and 'neutrality' of the analyst. Two examples are given of the author's deviations from such attitudes in treating what he terms 'façade personalities', both of which he diagnoses as 'paranoid schizophrenics'. In the one case of a male patient who exhibited evidences of severe ego disorganization and had been a patient on closed hospital wards, the author states that one matter in the case history stood out 'like an obelisk in the desert'. This was his behavior in the Second World War in which he had fulfilled the commands of his Colonel with a 'superb dash and daring'. The attitudes of the therapist then consisted of taking the role of the admired commanding officer and conducting the therapy in terms of 'sharp commands' and playing military games. A primitive level of verbalization was used, the whole having the effect both of a kind of ego education and ego support. At one point