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The author discusses the extent to which psychoanalytic treatments can be tested nomologically. He concludes that nomologically oriented
research operates from assumptions for which no empirical foundation is possible in psychoanalysis. He further claims that findings of naturalistic studies obtained with the nomological conception of science merely suggest that psychoanalytic treatments are effective, and that the specificity of these treatments is overlooked in such research. To resolve this dilemma, Zepf suggests that naturalistic studies be separated from the nomological conception of science, and that the structures of the course of analytic treatments be examined and systematized within analytic theory relative to their outcomes.
A conclusion is that analytic treatments will be successful if the thus-articulated theoretical sequences are actually realized in treatments that also take into account the patient's individuality. This approach, however, requires that treatment theory be based on a psychoanalytic conceptual common ground.