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This book contains a report on the combined individual and group treatments of twenty-five patients and observations on an additional fifty patients who were seen only in consultation. The twenty-five patients were expected to remain in treatment for a year. Only patients who had clear memories of incest were accepted. The follow-up also included patients who, in addition to individual and group treatment, had hypnosis or psychotropic medication, were hospitalized, and participated in marital and sexual treatment. The treatment conducted by the authors themselves was guided by psychoanalytic theory and was therefore considered to have been depth-psychological in nature. The patients were expected "to work through the trauma, to overcome the resultant conflicts and to achieve a better integration of their personalities" (p. xi). These are obviously ambitious goals, and the authors acknowledge that because of the nature of the trauma, "improvement must be necessarily relative and limited" (p. xiii).
The chapter headings and the organization of the book indicate that the authors' major aim in reporting the combined individual and group treatments of these patients was to arrive at certain generalizations regarding the transference, the countertransference, the psychopathology, and the acting out potentials, as well as the survival of the self of patients who were incest victims. The small size of the sample permitted them to indicate only "trends and tendencies," which, however, they felt were "clearly observable" and which they hope will be substantiated when "greater numbers become available."