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In the first lines of the Introduction to his The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis, Volume I (1967, New York: Int. Univ. Press), Ralph R. Greenson spelled out that the time had come for a textbook on psychoanalytic technique. He mentioned years (including Freud), yet he found them lacking in sufficient descriptive details about what is involved in analysing a patient. Greenson recognised that his textbook would not eliminate all the disagreements about technical matters, but hoped it would act as a useful reference by describing in great detail how he went about analysing his patients' psychic phenomena. He had not followed his original plan of utilising a chronological format (Initial Interviews, Transition to the Couch, the First Analytic Hours, etc.) and finally elected to publish an outline of the basic concepts of psychoanalytic theory and technique (Transference, Resistance, etc.) as Volume I of a two-volume work, the second to be organised along the lines of the original chronological concept.
Volume II has now been realised, and in its Preface Daniel P. Greenson (Ralph Greenson's son, an accomplished analyst himself, and one of the editors) tells us how his father struggled to finish Volume I and, in fact, completed it in part because of the prospect of a Volume II. His deteriorating health eventually forced him to abandon Volume II; he had already prepared an Introduction to it, however, which is included in the current volume. The donation of Greenson's professional library to the San Diego Psychoanalytic Institute in 1985 by his widow led to the discovery of the outline for Greenson's intended second volume (four detailed pages) and several unfinished chapters.
In creating this first monograph of the Ralph R. Greenson Memorial Library of the San Diego Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the editors (Drs Sugarman and Nemiroff are on the San Diego Institute faculty) originally planned to commemorate Greenson by publishing his outline, four of