In this paper Smith emphasizes the similarities between Lacan and American ego psychology by critiquing Lacan's concepts and examining what it means to use

Lacan's language. Smith believes that the centrality Lacan gave to language can advance ego psychology. To prove his thesis he discusses the concepts of transference and affect in the light of American ego psychology and of Lacan's ideas. Smith's reading of Freud is guided by the thinking of Rapaport and Loewald. The first part of the paper focuses on the concepts of transference and countertransference. The second part suggests reasons for Lacan's inattention to affect, as well as ways to introduce affect into Lacanian theory. Smith examines the concept of the pleasure principle and Freud's rejection of the idea of unconscious affect. He suggests that affect has a signifying role, though it is not a signifier in Lacanian terms. Finally, he states that the cure may be announced by "an affective equivalent of facing the originally repressed signifier of one's subjecthood."