ABSTRACT
Chapter 16 describes two patients treated in a psychodynamic group psychotherapy-oriented day treatment program, to which one had been referred from the inpatient unit. One patient’s treatment was considered successful; the other’s was not. Factors influencing the outcome of these “difficult” patients included considerations of countertransference, the use of a combination of confrontation and support, the therapists’ personal difficulties, and what one can conclude about serious deficiencies in our patients’ early environment. A digression on the development of the human mind is included. Factors that are prognostically favorable and unfavorable regarding a psychoanalytically informed treatment are described.
