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The article presents information on the patient as a constant in psychotherapy. It demonstrates a procedure which enables certain aspects of the psychotherapeutic process to be held constant by using a highly resistant patient. Experimental studies of characteristics of therapists and observers are then possible. In terms of this study, each therapist had his own style and method which was little influenced by conscious attempts to standardize technique. There were individual differences in regard to the degree to which a therapist could alter his approach to the patient. Some tried hard to return occasionally to the agreed upon approach. Others acted as if there never had been any discussion or agreement on the subject.

The article determines the nature of the relationship between two conceptually similar but operationally different definitions of cognitive process among both "normal" and patient subjects and determines the effect of this relation on selected outcome variables in psycho-therapy research, i.e., patients' and therapists' perceptions of the outcome of their psychotherapeutic interaction. Results indicated that conceptual dimensions and differentiation within dimensions are independent and play differential roles in the therapy interaction.

The article investigates the feelings of therapists in the therapeutic process. This study was concerned with what therapists typically feel in psychotherapy sessions, what the structure of these feelings was, and how these feeling clusters were related to the patient's experience. In general, salient therapist feelings were role-syntonic. There were nine dimensions of therapist affective experience and some of these were related to patient experiences. The value of these relationships as practical cues and for a greater understanding of psychotherapy process are discussed.

The article presents a study on an ideal therapeutic relation between therapists and patients. The study was conducted on 208 patients of the University of Texas, Austin, Texas's Testing and Counseling Center who were seen separately by one of the eight counselor-interns during the period of September 1958 to June 1961.

The article evaluates the relationship of therapists' ratings of patients to duration of stay in therapy, and appraises the effect of clinical experience on these relationships. Fifteen rated variables were utilized and compared with duration of stay in outpatient psychotherapy. The most striking finding of this study is the moderate to high reliability of ratings of experienced judges on therapeutic assets of therapy candidates and the failure of these judgments to relate to actual duration of stay in psychotherapy.

The article examines the role and status structure in psychotherapy groups. Psychotherapy groups exemplify the rule that prolonged interaction results in some measure of role differentiation and status structuring. For the purpose of this study interaction process data were used for individual profiles. These were derived by summating a group member's entries under a category heading over eight successive meetings. Therapy groups begin with the least possible structuring. The members are discouraged from meeting outside the therapeutic situation, and were in no instance known to do so as a complete group. Examining the content of therapeutic interaction, the most interesting finding is the way in which attempts to use the group as a source of reassurance and sympathy are appraised, in contrast with a willingness to supply such support to others.

The article presents a study on "listening" therapy. "Listening" was defined as the relationship between the stimulus input of the patient and the implicit hypotheses of the therapist about the patient which are made explicit in the therapist's verbal response under experimental conditions. A technique for making these hypotheses explicit was presented. These responses were content analyzed and groups of subjects were compared. Experienced therapists were found to make significantly more interpretative responses than trainees, but no differences were found between these two groups on any of the seven content categories used. Analysis of the possible effect of prior clinical information about the patient yielded no significant differences.

The article discusses on the evaluation of topics in therapy group discussion. It is hardly surprising that content analysis in therapeutic group discussion should have produced no significant results. On the one hand, psychoanalytically oriented therapists tend to hold the view that for the purposes of group psycho-therapy any topic is as useful as any other, that it is not what patients say that matters, but how or in what context they say it. Patients do show marked preferences when asked to rank topics of discussion for their helpfulness in group therapy. They also agree among themselves to a considerable extent on which topics are more, which less helpful. In fact, they do not confirm the dictum that any topic is as useful for therapeutic discussion as any other.

The article focuses on common factors of the patient-therapist relationship in diverse psychotherapies. No topic in psychology today occupies a place of greater prominence than psychotherapy. Yet the subject is perhaps more replete with confusion and contradiction than any other in psychology. Neither layman nor therapist can hope to discover in the volumes written on the subject arty very accurate picture of what most psychotherapy really consists of. The problem of adequate criteria hampers those who desire to investigate therapeutic successes and failures.