Analysts become so accustomed to dealing with the unusual that they run the risk of becoming refractory to recognizing it and even of becoming the accomplice of the patient's resistance by failing to experience the uncanny. The patient should not be spared the question of the unusual and uncanny at the heart of the familiar. David discusses the animistic tendencies and magical thinking which accompany the emergence of the uncanny in analysis. Through consideration of literary works by Max Jacob, F. J. O'Brien, and Saint Simon, David develops the topic of the unusual and the uncanny. He finds himself in agreement with the suggestion of the French literary critic, Todorov, that psychoanalysis has replaced the literature of fantasy.