Let me start by saying that I like Dr. Brenner's paper. I will discuss the reasons in a moment or two, but first I must thank him for absolving me from a little bit of professional guilt that I didn't know I had until I read his paper.

Having come from a psychologically remote area of Brooklyn, and having attended a high school which emphasized the physical sciences, I had never heard of Sigmund Freud until I arrived at the University of Chicago as an undergraduate. There, I was initiated into coffeeshop psychoanalysis. I met up with the bubbling, volcanic id; the brooding, reproachful superego; the sunny, clear-eyed ego—each with its own theme like the characters in Peter and the Wolf. Little did I know that I was learning about the structural theory. And little did I realize that forty years later I would be discussing the retirement of that famous trio.

I continued to read in Freud and about Freud throughout medical school and residency—the easy stuff, naturally—the clinical papers,