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It is my considered opinion that Merton Gill, with the assistance of Irwin Hoffman, has made a significant contribution to the clinical theory and practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy. This statement is based not only on the convincing theoretical arguments presented by Gill in volume one (1982) and the perceptive analysis of clinical material offered by Gill and Hoffman (1982) in the second volume of this work, but also on my own 15 years of clinical research, deeply empirical in nature, which has led to the development of the communicative approach to classical psychoanalysis (see especially Langs, 1982). In many critical ways, the clinical findings and theoretical conclusions of Gill and Hoffman correspond strongly with the results of my own clinical investigations — a point alluded to briefly in the first volume of the present work. These studies lend extensive and independent support to many of the ideas presented by Gill and Hoffman.
My own views on virtually every issue discussed by Gill are available in my writings (see especially Langs, 1972, 1975, 1976a, b, c, 1978a, b, c, 1979, 1980, 1981a, b, 1982). Rather than reiterate ideas and positons already amply detailed in the literature, I will confine myself in the present critique to indicating first, those major areas