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The article informs that the selection and validation of criteria to measure psychotherapeutic experience are important problems in current research. In an increasing number of studies the utility of psychological tests as guides to selection of suitable patients for psychotherapy is being investigated. Although the validation of such tests rests, to a large degree, upon the adequate measurement of the success or failure of the patient's therapeutic experience, insufficient research has been directed towards this area. The present paper reports on an empirical investigation of the relationship between the manner in which therapy is terminated and length of treatment and training and experience of the therapist.

The article describes the application of a scale for the objective assessment of process or movement in psychotherapy and reports the degree of reliability and validity found in a preliminary investigation. The present scale represents a refinement of the original scale based upon further analysis and study of additional therapy protocols. It seems apparent that satisfactory interjudge reliability can be obtained in using the process scale in its present form, and that ratings derived from it bear a meaningful relationship to other measures of successful change in therapy.

This article reports on a homosexual who was treated with rational psychotherapy. The client was a thirty-five year old male, living in Brooklyn with his parents, and operating his disabled father's toy factory. He had been raised as a Catholic, but no longer considered himself a believer. He was the only son of what he described as a "very religious and very neurotic" mother and an "exceptionally weak, dome mated father" who had been disabled by a serious stroke two years before the client came for treatment. He had always been quite close to his mother, and usually did her bidding, even though he bitterly resented her persistent attempts to control himself and his father.

This article discusses outcome of employing three techniques of psychotherapy. Since it has been the writer's custom, for the last several years, to keep summary records on all clients seen, including information relating to diagnosis, number of sessions, and therapeutic outcome, 78 closed cases were taken from the therapist's files, consisting of individuals who had been treated for at least ten sessions with rational analysis. These were matched with 78 cases of individuals who had been treated for at least ten sessions with psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy.

This article focuses on social class and the acceptance of psychotherapy. The patient source was the Out-patient Department of the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital, a training institution and community clinic offering various types of psychotherapy. A total of 57 patients who met the qualifications specified below were included in the study. All patients were between the age of 18 and 55 years and their diagnoses were either psychoneurosis or some form of personality disorder. Specifically excluded were patients with a diagnosis of organic brain disease, anti-social character disorder, alcoholism, overt psychosis, or mental deficiency.

The article reports that studies of the effectiveness of counseling and psychotherapy have used a variety of criteria as measures of success. Some researches have employed rating scales of differing degrees of elegance, others have relied upon psychological tests, while still others have emphasized physiological and environmental measurements. The behavior measured in such studies was sometimes quite specific, as changes in respiration or pulse rates, and sometimes very broad and elusive such as changes in sell concept. The therapeutic methods employed ranged from directive through eclectic and nondirective procedures. In every case the attempt was made in the approaches discussed here to measure the clients' status before therapy, after therapy, and in some studies, during therapy.

This article discusses directive psychotherapy. Animal experiments have demonstrated that a breakdown in the individuals ability to utilize past experience and to differentiate between stimuli typically results in the development of neurotic behavior of various types. Similarly, human inability to solve problem situations on the basis of previous knowledge results in frustration and maladjustive behavior. In this situation, emotional instability is a secondary phenomena occurring as a reaction to failure to solve problems with intellectual resources.

This article focuses on directive psychotherapy. While the limitations of explicit meaning have been pointed out frequently, occasionally people still mean, know, intend, and attend what they say. Not to take communication at its face value may lead to clinical failure as well as success. A common therapeutic error, particularly among analytically-oriented clinicians, is to place such concentration upon overtones, such obvious speculation concerning motives, that he seems pre-occupied and inattentive; he fails to deal adequately, i.e., logically.

This article focuses on directive psychotherapy. In terms of psychotherapy, reassurance means to restore confidence in another by assuring him of certain facts which were previously uncertain or unknown to him. The art of reassurance has been so extensively practiced by physicians, clergymen, teachers, friends and relatives that it hardly deserves designation as a special technique in guidance unless it is so skillfully utilized as to go beyond ordinary common sense. Historically, reassurance is one of the oldest psychotherapeutic methods, since men have attempted to reassure each other since time immemorial.

The article discusses a study of factors related to length of stay in psychotherapy. A previous investigation revealed that the patients applying for treatment in the Mental Hygiene Clinic of the New York Regional Office are representative of the veteran population in the greater New York area for most demographic characteristics. However, assignment to psychotherapy was found to be related to normative data indicative of high socio-economic status, intrapyschic complaints, youth, and expressed desire for psychotherapy, recommendations from psychological test evaluation and previous treatment. The present investigation is designed to determine whether the above and other demographic criteria for assignment are related to length of stay in psychotherapy or in psychosomatic treatment.