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This paper begins with a brief historical résumé of the relationship between clinical observations and the development of analytical theory and technique. The point is particularly made that, whereas some theoretical advances influenced the content of interpretation without having any specific effect on technique, the influence of ego-psychology and the greater understanding of resistances afforded by it has led to a gradual transformation of technique. Resistance has ceased to be an obstacle to analysis and has become part of the 'psychic surface' which has to be explored.
Two clinical examples are given to demonstrate the way in which the technique of giving priority to interpretation of defence-mechanisms and of proceeding from the surface to the depths allows greater and more detailed understanding to be achieved. The second example shows how a second period of analysis based on this technique was able to supplement an earlier one by its greater concreteness, and by its greater success in linking past and present, adult symptomatology and infantile phantasy. It elucidated the defence-mechanisms used to inhibit activities, the unconscious origin of which had been correctly understood in the first analysis.
The paper ends with a discussion of planning and intuition, from the point of view of the way in which advances in ego-psychology have made possible more accurate teaching about the 'hierarchy' and 'timing' of interpretations. The view is expressed that the antithesis often assumed to exist between the two is false, and that the problem it attempted to clarify is spurious. The apparent choice between planning and intuition is really a matter of the individual analyst's preference for conscious or preconscious thought processes. All advances in analysis have come about as a result of their interaction.