Ferenczi and Sullivan developed many similar clinical ideas but the historical evidence indicates that essentially they were developed independently and rested on very different theoretical premises. This conclusion runs counter to the current ideology of ecumenism which blurs intellectual differences. The history of American psychoanalytic thought can be divided into three phases: the first one of purification (until about 1970), the second of agglomeration (from 1970 to the present), and the third of investigation (emerging in the putative future). Were clinical and theoretical differences resolved by a scientific investigation, then Ferenczi's martyrdom and Sullivan's excommunication would have been avoided.