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The character and content of the therapy sessions of patients in psychoanalysis following immediately after the assassination of President Kennedy were significantly different from other hours with these same patients. As is to be expected, each patient reacted in his specific manner, but there were sufficient observable similarities in the group of patients to allow for hypothesizing as to the effect of the national tragedy upon the individual undergoing psychoanalysis, and more specifically as to the functioning of the individual ego after such a trauma. Several papers have appeared which deal with the effects of this mass experience upon the individual. Some of the findings were similar to my experiences with patients. Others were not entirely in accord with what I observed.
Over the period extending from 11:00 p.m. Friday, November 22, 1963 through Monday, November 25 and Tuesday November 26, 1963, I had the opportunity of treating twelve patients who were in psychoanalysis at the time. It may be opportune that all twelve patients on those days were men. They ranged in age from 29 to 44, although there was one, the eldest, who was 51. In addition there was a thirteenth patient in psychotherapy.
The outstanding feature of the variation from the usual hours was that eight of the thirteen patients showed a marked weakening of resistances, with an unusual portrayal of the genesis and conflicts by means of dreams, associations and transference reactions in the path of regression. Four patients did not show this kind of weakened resistance but demonstrated in bolder relief their defensive mechanisms.