A basic issue for all those essaying to write comprehensive texts on the nature of psychoanalysis, whether oriented primarily to the exposition of the theory or of the technique of psychoanalysis, - within the American literature the books by Brenner and by Greenson come to mind as exemplars of the two categories - is that of the relationship of the theory to the technique and the practice. This issue is however not always brought into explicit focus in this literature and thereby its problematic nature as a fundamental and not yet satisfactorily re solved dilemma of our discipline is often...