I describe a series of steps in the evolution of the hypotheses about therapy that our research group tested and supported by formal quantitative research methods. Each step depended on the careful analysis of observation, first of certain everyday phenomena and eventually of the behavior of the patient in therapy as revealed by the sequential study of transcripts of psychotherapies. According to these hypotheses, patients are highly motivated to solve their problems. They have powerful unconscious cognitive capacities that enable them to work at solving them, and they are able unconsciously to control what mental content they may experience consciously. They bring forth repressed mental contents when they unconsciously decide they can safely do so.