ABSTRACT
An investigation into the essential factors which operate in psycho-analytic treatment was the theme of a symposium at the International Congress of Psycho-Analysis held at Marienbad in 1936. Psychoanalysts differ in the importance they attach to interpretations, and the nature and significance they ascribe to them. The question of which factors are specific for an indication for psycho-analytic therapy, singly or in composition, and for what persons and conditions psycho-analytic treatment is the method of choice has long exercised author’s mind, both for its theoretical and practical importance. The patient, a married woman of thirty-nine, was sent to author by an experienced group psychotherapist with the special request to arrange for individual treatment. Group-analytic psychotherapy seems particularly valuable in the treatment and study of the conditions which Sigmund Freud here designates as less suitable or unsuitable for psycho-analytic treatment. This story is taken by Freud as a simile to illustrate the mode of selection for psycho-analytic treatment.
