Certain character traits may exert a resistance to the analysis of unconscious defense mechanisms. Unanticipated changes may occur in the function of some defensive attitudes. An example of a particular problem is the negative therapeutic reaction wherein we must search for the punitive superego forces and the masochistic attitudes of the ego. An awareness of the relationship between shifting transference reactions and masochistic attitudes is important. A reliable therapeutic alliance has to be based on safely established identifications. The patient can then also use the support of the analyst's 'autonomous' ego as his own ego becomes helpless, regresses, and abandons defenses. A 'good analytic hour' is evidence that conditions have been created for a spontaneous process of recall. The relationship between transference reactions and externalizations has been worked through. Regression can now be used by the ego for specific purposes and the patient can lift out of repression and re-experience in the transference specific infantile traumata.