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Abend’s paper is a gift for any author wanting a summary of where conflict theory (sometimes called “classical theory” by those who don’t embrace it, much to the annoyance of those who do and hear, in the word classical, the innuendo of old and outdated) stood on the question of countertransference thirty years ago, to be used as a launching pad from which to discuss developments in how we have been writing about it since then. His writing is clear and unambiguous (or as unambiguous as one could hope for, in the face of continued confusion/debate about such fundamental topics as the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis or how the mind works—especially unconsciously). Since then, the literature on countertransference wrestled with the problem that, while having a certain feeling at a specific moment can be treated as a fact, analysts, as is also true for patients, must interpret that feeling; and then analysts must make clinical choices about how to use their interpretations of their countertransference emotional experiences, and must also make clinical choices about how to respond to analysands’ interpretative readings of their analysts.