Free Association to a Fantasied Psychotherapist

As part of the procedure for investigating the physiological concomitants of psychotherapy,1,2a patient was observed, throughout the course of his treatment, by a group of observers whom he did not know and with whom he had no contact. Six months after the termination of this treatment, the patient returned for a follow-up interview. During this interview the patient was asked how he had felt about the unseen research-observer team. He replied that he felt ". . . somewhat more uncomfortable now (during the follow-up therapy) than I had during the latter part of the actual therapy." This was due, he reported to the fact that he thought some of the observers might have changed in the 5-month interval, that he had "developed a feeling of rapport with the previous observers" (whom he had never seen nor talked with), and that he