ABSTRACT
Goodhue Livingston's search for the underlying principle uniting the work of John Rosen, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Marguerite Sechehaye, Paul Federn, and others is a valuable contribution to the understanding of an important dynamic in psychotherapy. Activity, on the part of the therapist, was construed as the gratification or frustration of needs by the therapist. Further rules as to when one should be active, and in what way, are derived from one's ideas about the origin and structure of the psychotic personality. In the literature on the schizoid or schizophrenic personality and its treatment, there is agreement on the personality structure found in these people and the circumstances under which it develops. In 1946 F. Alexander and T. E. French, acknowledging their debt to Sandor Ferenczi, put forth the notion of a "corrective emotional experience" which they felt was more important than insight and was the backbone of what makes therapy work.
