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The longitudinal data of five psychotherapies, collected during the Hamburg Short Psychotherapy Comparison Experiment, were statistically reviewed by the method of time series analysis. The intention of the single case studies was to describe the therapist-patient-interactions in details for acquiring greater knowledge of the therapeutical process. The items to study were obtained by ratings. Although there were thirteen nonverbal characteristics of the therapist and the patient as well as one common feature of the relationship between them both. The results did not correspond with the theoretical expectations. There were only few changes in the behaviors of the therapists and the patients and there was little proof of mutual effects in their behaviors during the therapeutical process. Only one of the therapies showed a significant patient's reaction, but it was unexpectedly negativistic. This supports the idea, that the therapist's influence on the patient may not be very strong und may not necessarily be positive. However, there were some severe methodological data problems mainly concerning the applicability of the time series analysis. Nonequidistant measurements as well as the relative shortness of the time series made the validity of the results a topic to be discussed. In dealing with these problems, the necessity of conceptualizing the time structures of psychological processes became evident.

The fact that the gross outcomes of quite different forms of psychotherapy do not differ accordingly has been attributed to the existence of factors communal to any and every form of psychotherapy. For empirical study this thesis has to be dichotomized: (1) Are there really communal factors? (2) Do these engender communal effects in different therapies? Our empirical investigation of client-centered versus psycho-dynamic short psychotherapy shows that (1) is correct, however, the frequencies of these communal element often differ significantly between the two therapy samples. The results and (2) show that in spite of communality the correlation between a certain process category and an outcome variable regularly only attains significance in one but not the other therapy sample--sometimes they even show contrary signs. Hence the initially described explanation seems to be yet another myth in psychotherapy research. This myth assumes (i) interventions to be "monosubstances" (ii) the "doses" of which can be adequately measured in frequency per time unit and (iii) which shows a monotone relation to outcome.

In 1971/72 eighty-seven psychoneurotic and psychosomatic patients of the Psychosomatic Outpatient Department at the University Clinic of Hamburg-Eppendorf attained an indication for short-term psychotherapy. Nineteen patients did not accept our offer despite a sufficient prognosis; they form the nontreated control group. The remaining 68 patients were assigned at random to a psychodynamic conflict-centered (n = 34) or to a client-centered therapy (n = 34), each with a maximum of 30 sessions. In spite of this long interval of 12 years we gained information about 82.5% of our patients. The follow-up program consisted of a multidimensional approach to describe the posttreatment development of our patients: psychological tests, self-rating by the patient and assessments by the follow-up interviewer and independent ratings of experts. The efficacy of short psychotherapy is seen in the test scale 'extraversion' for both treatment groups, for 'depression' only for the client-centered therapy; for the psychodynamic therapy there is a tendency for late changes. The clinical ratings show no significant differences between the treatment and the control groups. Sex combination in the therapeutic dyads (i.e. same sex vs. opposite sex) is important for patients' posttherapeutic development.

(1) Our intake sample (n = 214) shows the well-known preponderance of upper-middle and middle class; however, in our case this selection is wholly independent from the influence of psychotherapists. Mean 'duration of problem' was over 10 years for 31% and from 5 to 10 years for another 18%. The intake sample deviated significantly in 'pathological' direction in every one of the 12 test scale means of the Freiburg Personality Inventory (FPI) from the population means. (2) Comparisons of the averse (i.e. to psychotherapy) subsample versus the affine group yielded cues that the former sample was a bit less ill and came from a less sophisticated background. The averse sample had a near normal arithmetic mean in 'verbal fluency' whereas its affine counter group was significantly higher. Therapy refusers (a subgroup of the averse) were less ill and had more often come 'on their own' than the 3 other subsamples. Therapy completers (a subgroup of the affine) were more often married and had a higher proportion of patients with a very long (10 years) 'duration of problem'. (3) Therapists' selection of candidates for psychotherapy operated through prognostic predictions for the intake sample. The prognoses of the CC predictors were significantly more optimistic than those of the PT prognosticians. In regard to psychological tests both CC and PT prognostically favoured 'manifest anxious' and 'inhibited' (socially anxious) patients. This communal nucleus is expanded for PT to include less sociable but not undercontrolled patients, whereas CC prognosticians favoured depressed, inferior feeling, but more verbally intelligent patients with less psychosomatic instability. Thus, except perhaps for the CC therapists preferring verbal intelligence, our prognosticians resisted the famous attraction of the YAVIS patient (Y = young, A = attractive, V = verbal, I = intelligent, S = successful) [Goldstein, 1977 p. 6]. (4) Lot assignment achieved a random distribution. There is a nonsignificant tendency for the immediate therapy sample to be a bit more disturbed than the waiting group. The patients filling out session questionnaires might be a bit more disturbed than those not asked to fill these in.

The present investigation emerged from the Hamburg Short Psychotherapy Comparison Experiment. Its aim was to compare psychodynamic, conflict-centred, time-limited psychotherapy (PT) to client-centred psychotherapy (CC) with regard to the direct and indirect verbalization of the therapeutic relationship--particularly of transference and resistance--for the purpose of investigating the congruity of theory and practice of the therapists involved. Transcriptions of 28 PT and 21 CC audio-recorded therapies were examined by means of a content analysis catalogue. The following (ascending) rank order in the frequency of verbalization of transference was found: CC-therapists, CC-patients, PT-patients, PT-therapists. The main differences are statistically significant. The contrary approach of the therapists probably conditions the differences found in the patients. Therapists in PT verbalised the occurrence of resistance in a much more frequent manner than their patients did. In CC resistance was verbalised only sporadically. These results confirm that the therapists involved acted in conformity with their respective theory.