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Interest in technical variations and modifications as well as in the related subject of "psychoanalysis and psychotherapy" is attested to by the frequent selection of these topics as subjects for discussion at psychoanalytic meetings. The most recent of these discussions was sponsored by the New York Psychoanalytic Society.1 The subject was presented in papers by Leo Stone and Edith Jacobson which were discussed by Anna Freud. In the first of these presentations Stone reviewed the background and recent development of the problem in terms of the various clinical conditions which are treated by psychoanalysis today. Jacobson's paper illustrated the problem by presenting material from a case of depression which she had treated.
In the discussion Anna Freud referred to analytic situations which evoked variations in technique. She regretted, however, what she felt was the enormous expenditure of time and energy involved in the treatment of borderline and psychotic cases in view of the small ultimate results. In her opinion it would be more rewarding to devote such efforts to less severe cases with greater therapeutic promise.
At still another panel, sponsored by the American Psychoanalytic Association, 2 the problem of transference and countertransference was recurrent in the presentations. For this reason it was decided to publish as a preface Douglass W. Orr's paper on transference, although it was not presented at the meeting. In this paper Orr surveys the literature on the theoretical and technical aspects of transference and countertransference. Three of the presentations at the symposium are published here. The