Introduction

At the age of thirteen, when Evelyn Liegner received from her brother The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, she felt she had found her life's work. From that time on she steeped herself in the world of psychoanalysis as a student, analysand, supervisor, teacher and author. Her exposure to modern analysis was initiated by founding modern analysts, Jacob Kesten, Yonata Feldman, Leslie Rosenthal, Leo Nagelberg and Lia Knopfmacher, all of whom introduced her to my work.

Since then I have watched her progress in becoming a clinician with an inborn talent for intuitive and therapeutic functioning buttressed by intense curiosity, fine intelligence and dedication to honing her skills in becoming a more effective facilitator for working with difficult patients.

I am pleased to make some brief comments about some of the papers she has written which demonstrate her inquiring mind and her skill in the variety and depth in the use of the object-oriented question, the contact function and the availability of her countertransference in resolving resistances. “Solving a Problem of Countertransference Resistance in a Case of Psychosis” attests to this skill. “The Hate That Cures,” previously published in this journal, presents her account of working with a psychotic patient.

All her papers are written with illustrative clinical vignettes, absence of jargon and simplicity of language. Her “First Interview in Modern Psychoanalysis” to the “Question of Termination in Modern Psychoanalysis” reveal her thorough comprehension of the basic tenets of modern psychoanalysis. The former may well serve as a mini-text for