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The analytic relationship is usually described in terms of the analysand's two areas of contact with his analyst: the area of transference neurosis, and the area of the therapeutic alliance. Neither is well defined or constant. Two general areas can be defined that demonstrate the complexity of the interplay between the two aspects of transference: 1, problems of reality, and 2, conditions of excessive fluidity between regressive neurotic manifestations and the critical ego. In the first area, the author scans a number of technical problems having to do with environmental intervention, reassurance and support, reality definition, and mutually shared contacts. Her main thesis is that all such activity by the analyst strengthens the transference meaning for the patient but at the double cost of a loss of autonomy for the patient and a weakening of the analyst's position as the nonparticipating observer of the internal neurotic manifestations. In the second area, Greenacre describes two adult women patients to illustrate the problems raised by their tendency to regress uncontrollably in the analytic hour,