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Advances in our understanding of the psychotherapeutic process as well as of psychopathology must be based on clinical data. Psychoanalytic treatment provides the major source of study of such processes, its verifiable data providing material for a theoretical framework for psychology, as well as for a theory of the psychotherapeutic process. In contrast, the more limited forms of psychotherapy provide less verifiable data, although they are very frequently utilized for a variety of reasons. I shall attempt to describe the course of a “medium term” treatment and to apply psychoanalytic concepts to its understanding, and to use this as a basis for better understanding the difference between psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
In order to study and evaluate the psychotherapeutic process and its relationship to the therapeutic techniques employed, as well as to correctly evaluate the latter, I believe that it is essential to provide a relatively stringent definition of psychoanalytic treatment as a frame of reference. M. M. Gill3 has provided the following definition: “Psychoanalysis is that technique which, employed by a neutral analyst, results in the development of a regressive transference neurosis, and the ultimate resolution of this neurosis by techniques of interpretation alone.” The so-called “classical” techniques-the couch, free association, frequency of visits, etc.-are considered to provide the best atmosphere for the development of a regressive transference neurosis.
Gill3 also has described “intermediate forms of [exploratory] psychotherapy … where goals are intermediate between rapid symptom resolution and character change, where techniques are in