For reasons which will become more apparent later, the outcome problem in psychotherapy has been receiving relatively scant attention in recent years-not because the problem has lost its importance but rather because of a realization on the part of researchers that a new approach to the issue must be found, and that more pressing matters must be dealt with first before we can address ourselves meaningfully to the question of the effectiveness of psychotherapy. This rationale partly accounts for the great interest in so-called process studies which have swept the scene during the last decade. In this paper I have set myself the task of reexamining the issue in the light of recent research evidence. Furthermore, I shall attempt to redirect attention to the therapeutic situation proper as an important criterion situation; if true, this statement would apply par excellence to the psychoanalytic situation. It appears that in the furor for "easy" quantifications we have largely lost sight of the rich potentialities for research in the transference situation, which unquestionably represents the greatest single methodological discovery for interpersonal research in the twentieth century.
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