[Remembering and acting out].

Abstract

In the accompanying paper two fifteen-hour psychoanalytical therapies were investigated with regard to the temporal distribution of Luborskian relationship episodes and the facial expressions of both protagonists. The two therapies were taken from a sample of eleven treatments: one had had the most success; the other, the least. The investigation focussed on what type of interaction between the recollective narration of past relationships and the present form of relationships could be expected, and whether the relation between these two would be dependent upon the success of the therapy. The hypothesis that a parallel processing of the narrated episode and the exhibited emotion would occur within the patient could not be confirmed. The frequency of recollective narration correlated negatively--in line with a hypothesis of Freud's--with the frequency of exhibited emotions. In the successful treatment, however, the therapist exhibited the emotions which one would have expected the patient to show. The results are discussed in terms of a theory of the psychotherapeutical process and containing.