Lexical differences between working and resistance sessions in psychoanalysis

Divided 25 psychoanalytic sessions with a single patient into 10 working sessions, 5 neutral sessions, and 10 resistance sessions on the basis of ratings by psychoanalysts. Using the Regressive Imagery Dictionary on keypunched transcripts of these sessions, significantly more primary process content and less secondary process content was found in the patient's working-session speech, as opposed to resistance-session speech. Lexical diversity was also higher during working sessions. Results are compared with those obtained with other types of verbal material and are discussed in terms of psychoanalytic views on the process of psychotherapy.