ABSTRACT
In Robert Langs's first psychoanalytic book, the two-volume The Technique of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, he stressed that events occurring in the mind of the patient—associations, phantasies, resistances, and recollections—as responses to stimuli. It was around this time that he began investigating the role of the most proximal of these stimuli: the behaviour of the analyst. Langs also argued that psychoanalysis can be injurious and that analysts can bring about "iatrogenic" (physician-caused) syndromes. Langs conjectured that the stories told during analytic sessions are responses to events occurring within the immediate therapeutic environment. Langs's theory of psychoanalytic technique is too intricate for a detailed account within the confines of this chapter. Langs's work has heightened psychoanalysts' awareness of the role of the frame. Langs's work additionally makes it possible to use communicative variables for quantitative research into verbal behaviour both inside and outside the psychoanalytic situation. According to Langs, there are two fundamental forms of verbal communication: the narrative and non-narrative mode.
