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AS A PSYCHOANALYST ACCRUES EXPERIENCE as a therapist and teacher, he comes to recognize that his basic commitment to the clinical psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic situations carries with it a number of peripheral, albeit important, areas of interest and even concern. Thus, in addition to his basic responsibilities to his patients, the psychoanalyst may find himself embroiled in debates and constructive efforts in such areas as the social impact of emotional illness and the broader problem of the psychological dimensions of culture and society; the narrower field of the political and organizational structure of psychoanalysis itself, and of communication among psychoanalysts; the basic clinical methodology of the psychoanalytic therapist and researcher; and a host of comparable problems. This kind of widening scope of the analyst's activities confronts him with situations in which his basic clinical methodology and expertise cannot guide or fulfill either his own needs or those with whom he deals on these "alien" grounds. He must then both face his limitations as a clinician in an unfamiliar field, and search for new and more appropriate guides and insights if he is to contribute meaningfully in these broader areas.
My own preference has been to work within the clinical psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic situations, and to endeavor to broaden my understanding of this special, bipersonal field. This has proven to be such a complex and challenging endeavor, and its mastery so elusive, that I have concentrated my efforts on documenting