This paper attempts to evaluate the once-weekly psychodynamic model and to outline the therapeutic principles and methodology on which it is based. Using Freud's concept of ‘psychotherapy for the people’, issues of time, frame, technique, and transference are discussed in relation to this model which draws on and adapts psychoanalytic theory and technique to suit its less intensive, but equally long-term practice. Some fundamental questions are raised in relation to higher frequencies of attendance, the status attached to numbers, the use of theory, choice of and suitability for once-weekly work.