Dear Sir,

John Forrester's and Laura Cameron's publication of Freud's unwonted description of Anna O's ‘cure with a defect’ (Int. J. Psychoanal., 80:929-42) is of particular interest to me because it accords with my interpretation of a ‘cure by compensatory structure’ (Tolpin, 1993)—i.e. the establishment of a circumscribed sector of the patient's self that is firmed up enough to sustain and support a meaningful, productive life. I want to briefly cite some of the new evidence for my interpretation (see Hirschmuller, 1989) because it also lends credence to the idea of the later health of Anna O. that Freud mentioned in answer to Tansley. This evidence enables us now, first, to make a reliable ‘reconstruction’ of the treatment and its traumatic ending; and, second, to make a critical reassessment of Anna O.'s transference and its