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Furlan reviews reports on the psychotherapy of fourteen schizophrenic and fourteen borderline patients. He notes a specific deficiency in the time sense of the schizophrenics, of which he mentions two manifestations: the patient's recollections of childhood have the quality of isolated, static photographs, rather than movies, and they seemed incapable of appreciating their own role in re-enacting the past in transference. In response to transference interpretation, they were able to see contradictions between their reactions to the therapist and present reality, and they were able to see how those reactions were identical to past reactions to parents. But, according to Furlan, they could not see themselves as central in linking the present to the past, nor could they appreciate the effect of the past on the present. Although alluding briefly to the possible defensive nature of this difficulty, Furman concludes that it should not be interpreted, as it serves a necessary organizing function. He argues against attempts at reconstruction, and in favor of a therapeutic approach which examines only the present relationship and the decodification of its "symbolism." The role of the therapist, in his view, is to become a "good primary object," and to provide synthetic and self-observing functions, in order to supply the patient with the heretofore undeveloped ability to construe a personal history, based on the relationship to the therapist.