This is an interim report of an extensive and detailed follow-up study of a large group of patients who had been admitted to the New York State Psychiatric Institute

for exploratory psychotherapy between 1963 and 1976. The schizophrenic patients in this group were more likely to have been rehospitalized, to be functioning at no better than a "marginal" level, and to be at greater risk of death, even from "natural causes," than comparable borderline patients. In addition, some patients who declined this treatment and left the Psychiatric Institute appeared to be functioning at a very much higher level than those who remained for the full course. The author concludes that exploratory psychotherapy seems to have had little positive impact on this group of schizophrenic patients, and it may have harmed some.