Respect is paid to unconscious forces which influence the physician as well as his patient. A brief discussion of two cases illustrates how the unconscious of both the informant and physician may affect the accuracy of a patient's history. Though wordy platitudes for the psychoanalyst, these remarks should bestir the nondynamic psychiatrist into consideration of his own unconscious wishes as integral to the recovery or even to increasing the debility of the patient. Alexander's terse sarcasm makes a forcible caricature of the vacations-drugs-electricity methods of traditional psychiatry.