Jacob E. Finesinger

Evaluation of Psychotherapy: With a Follow-up Study of 62 Cases of Anxiety Neurosis

PATIENTS ill with psychoneuroses have been treated by a wide variety of procedures, ranging from those designed primarily to effect physiologic changes to those which have been considered purely psychologic. A great need exists for methods of comparison and appraisal of therapeutic results obtained in various types of cases by various types of treatment. Burchard, Michaels, and Kotkov (8) have recently discussed group therapy from this viewpoint in a comprehensive critique. In the present paper we will concern ourselves with individual therapy of the psychoneuroses, only mentioning briefly other forms of treatment.

Managing the emotional problems of the cancer patient

this problem of medical care in cancer is not insurmountable, and can be largely resolved through analysis and study. This impression is being con firmed in the course of a study which has been in progress at the Massachu setts General Hospital. In this study emotional factors involved in the care of a series of well over sixty cancer pa tients have been investigated. The Study. The material forming the basis of the study was gathered by the psychiatrist and social worker in nu merous interviews on a group of more than sixty unselected patients at the Tumor Clinic and in the Medical and Surgical Services of the Massachusetts General Hospital. In this series of twenty-four men and forty-eight women interviewed by the social worker, twelve had chronic nonmalig nant tumors of which just over one third represented tumors of the breast. Twenty-eight of the cases were first seen before the diagnosis had been es tablished and in repeated interviews during treatment, and ten terminal cases were followed. In her interviews, the social worker avoided intensive probing, but gave the patients a chance to talk. In many cases she also inter viewed the families. In eleven of the cases, the emotional problems were ex plored more intensively by the psychia trist. Usually the patients treatment was planned by a single internist or