[Spontaneous recovery or successful therapy? A diagnostic and catamnestic problem (author's transl)].

The assertion often made very emphatically and predominantly by laymen that analytic psychotherapy does not help the patient is seen here as a problem still under review. The author gives due consideration to the control group, the diagnosis, the percentage of follow-up examinations in relation to the original case material, additional therapeutical components effective during psychotherapy, and to the various factors promoting spontaneous recovery.