Although psychoanalysis is by its nature a social process, conceptualizations of the process have not acknowledged that the two participants function within social roles. The resistance to understanding the way that these subtle role structures affect clinical process is illustrated by the discussants' responses to a paper delineating the analytic role and the patient's role. The author suggests that although psychoanalytic language is increasingly relational, resistance to a social view stems from the persistence of monadic models in analytic thinking and discourse. This tendency, in turn, stems from the vantage point of the clinical theorist, which is as observer of either self or patient. It is difficult to observe the interaction itself. The contribution of the concept of role in the analytic relationship is a beginning effort at providing some terminology for such conceptualization.