There has been a historical tendency to dichotomize psychoanalysis and cognitive-behaviour therapy. In the light of recent developments, the two approaches seem to reflect more areas of similarity than previously existed. These developments also suggest the possibility that action-oriented techniques at times can be judiciously implemented compatibly, and that with selected patients, they may enhance psychoanalytic therapy. In this view, which emphasizes an essential dialectic between adaptive action and insight, the use of action-oriented techniques is subordinated to, and is intended to advance, the analytic goal of modifying psychic structure. It is reasoned from an interactional perspective that the transference analysis may at times actually be furthered by the introduction of some action technique and the resulting exploration of and through it. Relational conceptualizations conceived principally in terms of self- and object-representation provide a model useful for understanding the intrapsychic impact of action-oriented techniques introduced into analytic therapy.