DR. LIONELLS' PAPER MAKES US reconsider some basic issues about diagnostic entities and approaches to treatment. She has changed the focus from understanding the libidinal conflicts underlying hysterical symptom formation, to how the hysteric relates to the significant people in his life. This is, of course, the interpersonal approach to analysis (Sullivan, 1954). She challenges the usefulness of studying symptoms to understand hysteria, arguing that many authors have observed "hysterical" symptoms in a variety of diagnostic groups. My own research on agoraphobia (supposedly a form of anxiety hysteria) also indicated that this symptom appeared in a wide range of diagnostic types. I would agree therefore that understanding the dynamics of a symptom is not the best way to understand, and help the patient.