Joseph Lichtenberg's paper is a summary of his lifelong effort to create a narrative by intertwining threads taken from past psychoanalytic metapsychologies, clinical theories, and a variety of developmental research studies. His narrative is ultimately a personal one, and he is forthright about his need also to integrate into it his experiences in three analyses, especially the painful and failed second treatment. Making this narrative is important because he wants to feel confident about his knowledge of other people (his patients) and about how he conducts treatment. He sets himself an ambitious task, to encompass