Goshen undertakes a survey of the case material reported by Freud. He believes that, in contrast to the diagnoses made at the time, these were nearly all instances of schizophrenia. Consequently, his argument runs, the basic tenets of psychoanalysis—the libido theory, the phenomena of transference, the death drive, etc.—are useful in dealing with schizophrenia but misleading with respect to other conditions.

Goshen's superficial study, from which these far-reaching conclusions are drawn, is marked—as might be expected—by such naïve misconceptions as that in transference the patient consciously believes that the analyst is his parent. Where the analyst shares this delusion, a schizophrenic system has developed. In general, the paper seems to point up the need for a careful differentiation between delusions and ignorance.