Analysts of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute conducted an analytically oriented follow-up study on successfully terminated patients to evaluate the results of their analyses. Two findings showed that: 1, the patient appears to deal with the follow-up study and the analyst as though they were a continuation of his original treatment; and 2, he manifests transitory intensification of residual symptoms or transitory recurrence of symptoms for which analysis was originally sought.

The explanation given is that the patient retains an important intrapsychic representation of the analyst. This is connected not only with transference residues but also with the resolved portion of the transference neurosis. Conflicts underlying symptoms are not utterly destroyed but only better mastered through analysis. In this study, analysands temporarily regressed on account of the dependency caused by the revived transference and repeated the resolution of their conflicts as mastered in the analysis.