- I have found it immensely helpful to have patients do written '' homework" assignments during the progress of
therapy. At the end of the first interview, the patient is almost always asked to write a paper covering (a) the history
and development of his personal problems, from childhood on; (b) what he believes his problems to be at present;
(c) what he hopes to achieve through therapy. Following this, the patient may be assigned additional papers dealing
with his educational and career autobiography, his sexual autobiography, relationships with parents and friends, etc.
Such assignments, of course, are intended to be a supplement to history-making, not a substitute for it. They often
provide valuable additional information. Further, the patient usually finds that the task of putting his life and
problems down on paper helps him to achieve an objective perspective.
It is often desirable to have the patient write reports on his understanding of the things he is learning in therapy and
on how he believes his new understanding is affecting him intellectually, emotionally, and behaviorally. This can
be especially helpful in group therapy, as a means of helping the therapist to remain informed about the state and
progress of each patient. Another value of such papers is that they act as a corrective to any inclination on the part
of the therapist to believe that the patient understands more than he in fact understands. They also act as a
corrective to any impulse on the part of the patient to confine his thinking about his problems to the time spent in
therapy.
- In view of the central and basic role which repression plays in the formation (as well as the sustaining) of
psychological problems, one of the therapist's most important tasks is to guide the patient through the process of de-
repression. I have indicated (Chapter Six) some of the evidences of the presence of repression: contradictions
between a person's verbally expressed beliefs and his emotions and behavior, or between his emotions and his
behavior, or among his emotions themselves, or among his actions themselves.
It is in seeking to understand and bring to light the patient's actual beliefs and feelings, when they have been
repressed, that the therapist's skills are especially tested. He requires the full power of his perceptiveness, his
emotional sensitivity, his ability to grasp implications in his patient's statements to which the patient may