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Various aspects of technique have at some time or other been controversial, for example, the number of sessions and the length of sessions. This paper highlights the evolution of technical thinking on these and other issues, to delineate the reasons for the focus on technique, as well as the clinical bias toward oedipal material. Bergeret reviews Freud's comments on technique and shows the development of Freud's thought from the six sessions a week he wrote of in 1913 to his modifications in the 1920's. Bergeret also discusses some of Freud's limitations when confronted with those areas that have today become of interest to us—borderline and psychotic patients, as well as neurotics who do not exemplify classical treatment cases. He links the question of frequency of sessions and duration of treatment to the focus on the neurotic aspects of psychopathology (genital, triadic, and oedipal themes). The length of treatment seemed to increase as problems other than these were faced, with the mean length changing from six months in 1922, to two years in 1927, and then to four years at various institutes by 1947. Bergeret criticizes the "neurotocentrism"