The final judgment depends on how much emphasis is given to the residual difficulties. SCORES Team 1 3.5 2.5 Team 2 2.5 2.5 Mean 2.75 THE o,INICAL MATERIAL I THE COMPANY SECRETARY 59 The Company Secretary SUMMARY Category. Short, unfavorable (12 sessions, outcome 1.0). A married man of forty-three complaining of indigestion and partial impotence. Final follow-up suggests that he was wrongly assessed initially and many factors in the situation between him and his wife were not elicited. The initial focus seems to have been wrongly selected, and the main response to interpretation came far later on an unexpected theme. CONTRIBUTION TO THE CORRELATIONS WITH OUTCOME Motivation: Positive (intermediate motivation, poor outcome). Focality: Major disagreement between the judges. Transference iparent interpretations: Strongly positive (low score, poor outcome). DETAILS OF PATIENT AND THERAPIST 1. Patient Sex M. Age 43. Marital status Married. Occupation Company secretary in the head office of a chain of radio and electrical shops. Complaints (1) Indigestion, (2) partial impotence, for six years. What seems to bring His wife is now pressing him to seek treatment patient now for his sexual problem. 2. Therapist Code G. Sex M. PSYCHIATRIC HISTORY His first attack of gastric trouble occurred about six years ago and lasted for a few months. It consisted of attacks of left epigastric pain.

1 The Current Position of Research in Psychotherapy.- 2 Design of the Second Study of Brief Psychotherapy.- Aims of the Study.- Design of the Replicated Study of Brief Psychotherapy.- 3 The Psychodynamic Assessment of Outcome.- Defining a Psychodynamic Hypothesis.- The Outcome Scale.- Reliability.- 4 Criteria for Rejection and the Nature of the Sample.- 5 The Clinical Material.- The Au Pair Girl.- The Car Dealer.- Mrs. Clifford.- The Company Secretary.- The Contralto.- The Factory Inspector.- The Gunner's Wife.- Mrs. Hopkins.- Mrs. Lewis.- The Maintenance Man.- The Playwright.- The Representative.- 6 The Observed Improvements, Clinical Considerations.- The Influence of External Events and Changes of Environment- "Spontaneous Remission" After Psychotherapy.- Evidence on the Validity of Psychotherapy from Time Factors.- 7 Further Follow-Up on the First Series.- Articled Accountant.- Biologist.- Civil Servant.- Dog Lady.- Draper's Assistant.- Falling Social Worker.- Girl with the Dreams.- Hypertensive Housewife.- Lighterman.- Neurasthenic's Husband.- Paranoid Engineer.- Pilot's Wife.- Railway Solicitor.- Storm Lady.- Student Thief.- Student's Wife.- Surgeon's Daughter.- Tom.- Unsuccessful Accountant.- Violet's Mother.- Discussion.- 8 Failure to Terminate and "Spontaneous Remission".- The "False" Cases.- Statistical Methods Used.- A Note on One-Tailed and Two-Tailed Tests of Significance.- Hypotheses of the Necessary Condition.- 9 Selection Criteria at Initial Assessment.- Methods Used in the Present Study.- Study of Motivation by Malan and Rayner.- 10 Selection Criteria at the Initial Stages of Therapy.- Focality.- The Practical Viewpoint.- The Relation Between Motivation and Focality.- Practical Considerations.- Theoretical Implications.- 11Content Analysis, Preliminary.- 12 Number of Sessions, Passage of Time, and the Validity of Psychotherapy.- The Correlation Between Outcome and Passage of Time.- Number of Sessions and Passage of Time in the First Series.- Passage of Time and Outcome in Other Series.- Is a Certain Minimum Number of Sessions Necessary for a Good Therapeutic Result?.- The Influence of Number of Sessions on Correlations Involving Outcome and Proportions of Various Types of Interpretation.- 13 The Transference/Parent Link.- Reliability.- Correlations with Outcome.- "Undirected" Interpretations.- Discussion.- Significance of This Observation.- 14 Other Correlations.- Early Transference and Work on Termination.- Negative Transference.- The Therapist's Involvement.- The Relation Between Working Through of the Transference and Behavior over Follow-up.- The Transference/"Other" Link and Length of Therapy.- The Patients Who Failed Follow-up.- More Light Relief.- A Note on Correlations and Chance.- 15 The Evidence and Its Implications.- The Long Cases.- The False Cases.- "Exceptional" Cases.- Overall View of Therapeutic Mechanisms; Specific and Nonspecific Factors.- 16 The Question of the Validity of Psychotherapy.- References.