A major question in the treatment of mildly psychotic or prepsychotic patients is their capacity for object relationship. The author suggests that treatment is furthered when the therapist becomes 'a real person who will protect the patient' from himself, and who will 'nurture every tendency toward self-reliance and self-observation'. The therapist must be strong enough to control the patient, he must not be seduced, and he must be able to induce dependency on him. Under such conditions one can guide the patient toward activity, good judgment, and initiative, and can discourage regression. Unfavorable results often stem from mistaking a narcissistic object relationship with the therapist for a true and mature object relationship. The hostile transference can be worked through only when the separateness of patient and therapist is worked through.