ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that psychoanalytic treatment, with its foundational frame of session frequency and duration, results in the patient's perception of treatment as effective. The congruent findings were documented in a recent article by Shedler, who reported effect sizes for psychodynamic therapy that were as large as those reported for other types of therapy. And also it noted that patients who received psychodynamic therapy maintained therapeutic gains and appeared to continue to improve after termination. Geller's further explication of the Representation of the Therapeutic Dialogue gives a compelling and vivid affirmation of the continuity of the therapeutic process, even in the absence of the therapist. Patients suffering from grief depression would benefit more from long-term psychotherapy, rather than from pharmacological intervention. The concept "post-termination phase" speaks to Freud's idea of analysis as "interminable", for clearly, our patients continue to recall, interact with, remember, and make use of all aspects of their therapy experiences many years after termination.
