Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy have generally tended to focus on the intrapsychic and distorted aspects of the patient's relationship with past early important figures. Robert Langs's development of the communicative approach to psychoanalytic psychotherapy, in contrast, acknowledges as one of the critical factors of the therapeutic relationship the patient's valid unconscious perceptions of important others. The approach is therefore concerned with the influence on the patient of the harmful inputs of the therapist. From a communicative position, the therapist's