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Widlöcher argues that the theme of change is basic yet has had little psychoanalytic attention, except for the studies of its technical aspects. Prior to psychoanalysis, psychology focused on the question of individual differences, whereas psychoanalysis invites us to reflect on the nature of identity and change, which, he believes, are inseparable terms, for there can be no change without a structure which assimilates the change. Psychoanalysis has oscillated between the genetic point of view—a historical, realist view of the past event—and the intellectual perspective in which past events take on the value of a mythical elaboration, as in reconstruction. The genetic approach has come under question: are references to developmental reality relevant to psychoanalytic process? But even its adversaries do not question the pathogenic role of past external reality or the effect of development on the organization of thought. The genetic point of view has not been so much disputed as set aside in application. Widlöcher attempts to close the gap between psychogenesis and the theory of treatment. Perhaps the process of change in treatment might permit us to understand better what happens in life. Such an approach would complement the genetic point of view, for instead of using our knowledge of child development to understand treatment, we can utilize knowledge of the intrapsychic changes occurring in treatment for a better understanding of development and the cycles of transformation which occur throughout life. Widlöcher takes up a theme of Daniel Lagache: that the fundamental rule of psychoanalysis sets up a new diachronic order in mental functioning, although resistance to the analytic process opposes its establishment. The changes in analysis result from the continuous activity of mental transformations which develop in the real time of the sessions (a view resembling Strachey's 1934 discussion of therapeutic results). The diachronic point of view permits u