Arthur H. Auerbach

The Symptom-Context Method: Quantitative Studies of Symptom Formation in Psychotherapy:

REUD’S CLINICAL GROUNDWORK was that of a naturalist: the careful, repeated observation of phenomena. The main locus of F his observation was what the patient was saying as he allowed his thoughts to come freely to mind. Freud’s theory of symptom formation stands on this methodological foundation. Almost all the additions to knowledge of symptom formation have been built by the same method applied in the same way-a single observer of the patient’s flow of thoughts as he expresses them during psychotherapy. Recent contributions using that method have made

A sound-filmed psychiatric interview: number 2, the “Temple University” interview

One of the original conceptions of this book, when Albert Scherten1 was first working on the idea of compiling the material, was that it would be comprised of a collection of papers each illustrating a research method applied to the same sound-filmed psychiatric interview. That organization of the book was not adopted because the editors decided it might limit the types of significant contributions to research methods in psychotherapy that could appropriately fit in this book. A number of groups of research workers in psychotherapy across the nation, however, had access to transcripts or films of this sound-filmed interview, recorded under the direction of Dr. Scheiten at Temple University Medical Center. Of these researchers, several did, in fact, use this recorded interview to illustrate their methodological approach. Four chapters in this book (those by Erika Chance, Louis A. Gottschalk, et al., Philip F. D. Seitz, and Albert E. Scherten) made use of what we will call the “Temple University” interview.

Goals and problems in psychotherapy research

No new or compelling evidence is needed to establish the concept that one person can influence another’s inner psychological experience or external behavior by silently listening to him, by directing toward him certain combinations of sounds and words; by various facial expressions, gestures, and gross body movements; or by various kinds of physical contacts, such as touching, holding, striking, or caressing. These are facts of common sense and experience, recognized by everyone long before he has a language to give names to such a process and is able to wonder how it works. What we call psychotherapy is one institutionalized form of this process whereby one individual attempts to influence another. Other contexts supply other names for this process of human interactions: ritual dancing, confessing, brainwashing, inciting, reassuring. This psychotherapy, this treatment involving talking and listening, has come to occupy a prominent place on the cultural scene. Many words have been devoted to describing the process, revealing its essence, demonstrating the lofty humanism in it, showing its compatibility with religion, instructing future therapists, and reassuring patients. Everyone knows what psychotherapy is. But it is easier to write a plausible and convincing book explaining the subject and the method than to prove a single assertion about it with any degree of scientific rigor.