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Bandler urges that the healthy or positive aspects of the patient's personality, and not only his illness, should be understood. Psychotherapy has always been directed to the patient's pathology, and in some ways more is understood about disease than about health. In the initial interview, for example, we should pay special attention to learning in what circumstances the patient has functioned best. The study should not be merely an inventory of assets but should also provide an understanding of the dynamics of health in the particular individual. This approach helps to establish a basically sustaining positive transference and avoids exacerbation or decompensation by too early interpretation of repressions. A 'positive' relationship may by itself lead to rapid subsidence of symptoms. The functions of a therapist are to resolve conflicts, solve problems, satisfy needs, and mobilize inner and outer resources. In order to do any of these things, the therapist must know how the patient has done them for himself in the past. Then the therapist must assist the patient in his relationships, in management of his feelings, and in obtaining satisfaction. It may not be necessary to work in all these areas, since a gain in one may produce general improvement. The value of insight is still overestimated in psychotherapy, and the basis for most success in psychotherapy is transference, suggestion, and sublimation (either re-establishing old sublimations or achieving new ones).