Author's Response

I take pleasure in responding to these thought-provoking contributions.

Dr. Ticho as well as Dr. Rosenbaum rightly stress the importance of the role countertransference plays in diagnostic assessments. I agree with Dr. Krystal and Dr. Wangh that there is no way of compensating for loss of happiness, especially in human beings who were severely damaged by persecution in infancy and childhood. In 1961, Dr. Erwin Straus already had emphasized that basically no restitution is possible for such suffering.

Certainly, as Dr. Chodoff states, a negative judgment in a particular case does not necessarily indicate defensive behavior on the part of the examiner. I, too, made this point when I quoted Dr. Venzlaff. I myself felt unable to write a counter-opinion for several survivors of severe persecution because their present condition did not seem to substantiate the necessary evidence to qualify under the German restitution laws. Such decision does, however, not fit the attitude of the second category of experts.

Dr. Chodoff again agrees with me when he states that “over-identification with survivors presents a more real hazard.” As I had put it: “The greater danger seems to be over-identification.”

Dr. Krystal quite correctly remarks that delving into the survivor's reaction to gruesome events of his persecution has to be experienced by him as a return of the persecution. Therein lies the answer to Dr. Ticho's question regarding the survivors' permanent sensitivity toward injustice.

Illuminating as Dr. Ticho's battered child syndrome is in regard to countertransference reactions, it is misleading if used here as an example for comparison. Were we to find analogies, the parents would represent the Nazi persecutors, the battered children the victims. Dr. Ticho got in touch with the persecutors but not with the victims.

Dr. Krystal suggests a fifth category of examiners “playing God.” There is certainly a basis for such description. However, I think it is largely represented by the th