Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

November 11, 1958. A PROCEDURE FOR EVALUATING THE RESULTS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS. Arnold Z. Pfeffer, M.D.

A preliminary account of a procedure for the evaluation of results of psychoanalysis is presented. A theoretically ideal procedure would be reanalysis of previously analyzed patients with emphasis on analytic and therapeutic changes. As this is not practicable, the procedure followed was a series of interviews once weekly by another analyst. The analyst who had analyzed the patient participates in the study by providing the follow-up analyst with pertinent information prior to the follow-up study, and both analysts confer after the study. Nine patients were studied, and in this paper, two are discussed in detail.

The first patient was a young homosexual woman with a history of a disturbed social and family life. She was analyzed two and three-quarter years. The study took place four years after termination of her analysis. When analysis was terminated, she had greatly improved, had given up homosexual activity, could relate quite well to men, could accept her parents, and felt at ease in social situations. The study demonstrated that this improvement was maintained and the patient stated she needed no further treatment. She had married and become a mother. The study demonstrated the existence of certain residual problems. It was striking that a single follow-up interview evoked distinct transference reactions. This was true in all the cases studied. This rapid, open transference to the follow-up analyst, a phenomenon hitherto not described, is probably a displacement of residues of the analytic transference.

The second patient was less successfully analyzed. She was a young woman with severe anxiety, depression, fear of insanity, compulsive masturbation, and acting out. Three years after termination of a two-year-long analysis, her anxiety and depression had disappeared, but were replaced by conscious awareness