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We have shown that while on the one hand interactional psychotherapy is based on the nosology of psychoanalysis, in the realization of its methods and techniques it is nevertheless clearly distinguished from the standard approach of psychoanalysis. We developed this specific therapeutic procedure to meet the needs of patients with ego-pathological phenomena, more and more of whom are now turning to the analytic psychotherapist and in whom psychoanalysts are also showing a more and more intensive interest. This is demonstrated by the work of Kernberg (1978), Kohut (1971) and Blanck and Blanck (1978), as well as that of Fürstenau (1977) and König (1975) in the German-speaking world. We perceive the interactional psychotherapy that we have proposed (Heigl-Evers and Heigl, 1973 and 1979) as a therapy for ego-pathogenic phenomena. It is indicated in the case of patients with this type of disorder in a certain phase, usually the initial one. If a patient succeeds, with the help of this treatment, in developing an ego state roughly equivalent to what Freud referred in 1937 as the normal ego and which he considered to be a prerequisite for psychoanalytic therapy, then it should be possible to treat the conflict pathology which is also usually present in such patients, using the classical repertoire of psychoanalysis according to the principle of interpretation.

We consider the depth psychologically grounded psychotherapeutic principle as being distinct from the principle of the classical psychoanalysis, on the one hand, and from the interactional principle derived from ego-psychology and ego-pathology on the other. In our attempt to more closely define the depth psychologically grounded principle we started out from the definition of a psychotherapeutic approach named depth psychotherapy in the so-called psychotherapy guidelines and additionally from an attempt at distinguishing this type of psychotherapy psychoanalysis by Loch. While the definition in the psychotherapy guidelines is at once a localization and a centration and therefore also a specification, Loch in the comparison of depth psychologically grounded psychotherapy and psychoanalysis merely observes differences in quantity, but not in quality. In differentiating the definition of a psychotherapy based upon depth psychology, we oriented ourselves on the intersection metaphor of the origin of neuroses. According to this metaphor, a necrosis manifests itself at a point where, in a manner of speaking, the vertical axis of the life history and the horizontal axis of the actual situation of an individual cross. The crossing signifies that latent pathogeneity with its origin in the life history may, under specific interpersonal conditions which, for their part, are mostly subject to specific socioeconomic and sociocultural conditions or both (pathogenic field), lead to a clinical manifestation. Latent neurotic conflicts are actualized in this way. When an actualized conflict of this kind can be distinguished the following possibilities for focussing on a therapeutic technique offer themselves: 1. The specific triggering (interpersonal) situation (situation of temptation and refusal) for the symptoms in question. 2. The pathogenous social fields, in which the triggering situation arose. 3. The actual interpersonal relationship between patient and therapist. The objective of this psychotherapy in the sense of a modification of the "triangle of insight" (Menninger; Menninger and Holzmann) consists in affording the patient an insight into the triggering (interpersonal) situation, into its inherent pathogenous social field, into the actual interpersonal relationship between patient and therapist, and finally, into the connections existing between these components; in this manner a limited insight into basic internal conflicts can be reaches, and in addition to a diminishing of the symptoms a partial internal reorganization is attempted. The means of reaching this objective present themselves, on the one hand, in the setting, the therapeutic arrangement (neutrality and abstinence of the therapist, handling of the frequency and duration of the individual meetings, and, should the occasion arise, occasional inclusion of significant others), and on the other, in certain types of therapeutic interventions...

We have attempted to demonstrate the importance of the concept of value testing set forth by Hartmann in 1960 in terms of both clinical practice and the theory of psychoanalysis. We use a case study to illustrate the way in which this subfunction of the inner reality testing ties in with the subfunction of signal guilt (the function of affect differentiation as one of the subfunctions of the perception of internal reality) and with the anticipation of the interpersonal effect of one's own behavior and the appropriateness of this behavior as subfunctions of judgment. In conclusion we discuss the suitability of the concept of value testing as a way of relating the psychoanalytic idea of the moral organization of action to the ethics of utilitarianism.