This brief article serves as an introduction for this special section and highlights theoretical and personal factors affecting the application of psychoanalytic thinking to the understanding and treatment of the psychological dilemma of the nontraditional population of patients. It is our belief that, by including a serious discussion of the reality of these individuals and the cultural, ethnic, and linguistic factors which characterize their lives, it will result in a more comprehensive and richer view of the concept of normalcy, pathological formation, adaptability and other ego functions, and the like.