The Patient-Analyst Match and the Outcome of Psychoanalysis: A Pilot Study

This paper presents a pilot study in which we explore the possibility that the match between analyst and analysand is a factor of central importance in the analytic situation. It is an attempt to look at the issue of match across a large number of patients. The data we used were not collected for studying this topic; thus, the study has serious limitations. Nevertheless, certain patterns emerged which support our thesis that patient–analyst match plays a significant role in the outcome of psychoanalysis. We present this work as a first step in developing concepts and methods which will be pursued in a more systematic and rigorous fashion in a later study.