Spruiell is concerned to show the part psychoanalysis can play in setting up a realistic and useful theory of values. He examines the nature of blaming, which oversimplifies the intentions and behavior of the person blamed; much blaming is a defensive reaction. Under some circumstances, as when social systems break down as they are doing today, blaming can be dangerous and destructive to the blamer and to the persons or groups blamed. Spruiell examines the part blaming may play in psychoanalytic treatment, particularly in countertransference. Analysts cannot establish or endorse particular moral values, but psychoanalytic treatment can facilitate the individual's determination of his or her values. Spruiell talks also of questions of responsibility, of the development of moral values; and he cites The Virgin Spring to illustrate some of his ideas.