This article is an abbreviation of a chapter from a book entitled Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy. Some of the pitfalls which may be encountered by the inexperienced or improperly qualified psychotherapist, and some of the misuses of the psychotherapeutic process are vividly described. The reasons for and goals of the personal analysis are elaborated. The 'psychotherapist must be able to listen' to another person in the other person's own right: not only must countertransference phenomena be understood and minimized but the therapist must have enough sources of satisfaction and security in his own nonprofessional life to forego the temptation of using his patients for the pursuit of his own satisfaction or security. Various succinct examples of how this can and does happen are given. The therapist must not be bound for his security to the 'denizens of the society and culture of his era', and then feel impelled to have his patients conform to them. Particularly is this true with schizophrenics, in whom recovery often depends on the psychotherapist's freedom from convention and prejudice.