The Annual of Psychoanalysis. V, 1977: On the Continuing Evolution of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: Reflections and Predictions. Paul H. Ornstein and Anna Ornstein, with discussion by Abraham Zaleznik and Evelyne Schwaber. Pp. 329-370.

The authors establish a continuum from psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy to focal psychotherapy. They describe the therapeutic process in the psychoanalytic psychotherapies, stressing both differences and similarities. The following quotation is the gist of their main thesis: "We have placed the curative fantasy into the center of the evolving patient-therapist relationship, in order to illustrate how a narrow segment of the patient's fantasy might be activated in focal psychotherapy, a broader and deeper segment of it in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and its most regressive and archaic roots might be activated and unfold in psychoanalysis." Thus the curative fantasy is considered to be the common denominator of these therapies.

In his discussion of the paper Zaleznik makes many interesting points, some of which are: 1) the extent to which patients differ stands in the way of attempting to unify all therapies and put them on a continuum; 2) the Ornsteins seem to leave out the important factor of resistance in establishing their theories of therapy; 3) although interpretations are important, it would have been more useful if they also had been able to address themselves to the limitations of interpretations; and 4) the fact that they insist on the concept of the continuum as described above may be a fallacious approach, but this does not minimize the remainder of their contributions. Schwaber's discussion contributes some very interesting points about empathy.