Abstract
Psychotherapy to the student is like an uncharted sea upon which he sets forth with no aids to navigation. Psychotherapy has not attained the status of a science. In order that it may aim to become a science, it will be necessary for psychotherapy to become classified into categories which can be applied to the different clinical conditions. A beginning may be made towards this endeavour by recognizing the different elements of psychotherapy. It is suggested that all the constants which form the framework of the therapy (frequency of interviews, mode of communication, type of interventions of therapists, etc.) may be said to form the structure, or structural framework. Into the structure, or vessel, will flow the therapeutic process. The surface of this process will be the content (the content of communication, both verbal and non-verbal). The process is governed by the Principle of Determinism which is basic to all sciences. The immediate therapeutic situation is the result of the various forces emanating from the individual's past and present. The forces emanating from within the patient are instinctual and are representative of the object relationships of his childhood. These become transferred to the therapy situation. Material of the process will consist of transference elements, elements from the current life and the patient's childhood. An attempt has been made to show that psychotherapy may become a science if the operations of which it is composed can be properly systematized and studied.