The problem of estimating the relative intensity of a psychologic conflict is an important and challenging one for investigators of human personality. One aspect of this problem, which has been particularly elusive, has been that of comparing the intensity or degree of a specific psychologic conflict in one patient at different times and over a large number of periods of observation. Investigators attempting to evaluate the effect of therapeutic agents or procedures, e. g., drugs, electroconvulsive treatment, and psychotherapy, have felt the need for a precise and reliable technique of measurement of changes in psychodynamic balance within a subject. The need has also been felt by investigators doing psychosomatic studies.The development of personality tests and inventories has been one approach to this problem, but most of these methods, while capable at their best of distinguishing reaction types among a group of individuals, are not sensitive enough or are not so constructed as to make fine discriminations of the full range of variations within an in¬ dividual. Furthermore, another approach, the psychiatric rating form, though it at¬ tempts to measure variations within an and Welfare.individual, as well as differences among individuals, has not usually been tailored to give information about psychodynamic rela¬ tionships, and often the reliability of the procedure has not been established.This report describes an experimental method of estimating the intensity of a psychologic state by means of frequency counts of relevant categories of references occurring in samples of speech plus the application of this method to a problem in psychosomatic correlation. The present study is part of a program of research on the analysis of verbal behavior in which a group of investigators is collaborating.1"5In a preliminary studyß an association was noted between the intensity of a specific psychodynamic state of a 32-year-old woman and the relative percentage of Strep¬ tococcus colonies cultured from her oropharynx. It appeared in that study that there was an association between the bac¬ tériologie variable and the ways in which the patient was attempting to handle her inordinate dependent yearnings. On the one hand, she wanted to get love and attention but tended to inhibit the direct expression of these dependent wishes because she felt undesirable, unworthy, and likely to be spurned. On the other hand, she became resentful at the frustration of her cravings but avoided expressing directly her reac¬ tive hostility for fear of further alienating potential sources of affection and attention. Our preliminary study suggested that when the patient was attempting to resolve her conflicts by the compromise of accepting or seeking punishment and the enhancement of suffering to gain support, attention, human contact, the Streptococcus colony counts in Downloaded From: http://archneurpsyc.jamanetwork.com/ by a University of Manitoba User on 06/16/2015
