This contribution argues that a classic paper by Bouvet's formulates a dilemma for psychoanalytic technique � what to do if the frame within which the analyst is working appears to require departure from core technique? Bouvet's concern was that too much intuitive adaptation might promote, in effect, “anything goes”. He proposed his concept of distance, anchored in his original and important understanding of the formation of object relations, as a heuristic to test adaptations to situations in which patients are severely unable to separate the objects of their projection from the objects themselves. For me the dilemma is well stated, but I argue that its understanding and solution depends on clarity about what is supposed to constitute core technique and what a departure from it. The fragmentation of technique and loss of common understanding in today's psychoanalytic world makes that difficult. I approach the problem by introducing some core suppositions every psychoanalyst must make, whether implicitly or explicitly, when they are working: about unconscious inference, unconscious repetition, the analytic situation and how to further the analytic process. I argue suppositions are rather different in what I sketch as the “insight”, “here and now” and “associative” approaches tcharacterising the modern scene.