Comment by Jule Nydes

One of the major points made in this stimulating article is that effective therapy must be an emotional experience for both therapist and patient rather than an intellectual exercise devoted to a dry analysis of the patient's problems and their history for the purpose of helping him to adjust and conform. With that proposition even an orthodox Freudian psychoanalyst (if he is worthy of the title) would not argue. A sensitive awareness of transference and counter-transference problems and of the devious ramifications of resistance serves to keep the therapeutic relationship emotionally alive, and a healthy respect for the patient's right to choose, within the limits of circumstance, his own destiny, should restrain any tendency to try to mold him. In their failure to acknowledge this the authors seem to be governed by their own rigid preconceptions concerning the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. To describe the therapeutic relationship as “immediately spontaneous,” “timeless” and “all-embracing” is in fact to identify some of the central attributes of free asociation, which is governed by the patients' conscious and unconscious conflicting intentions and in which “past, present and future are telescoped into one” rather than by the mechanics of objective causality.

While the authors agree that “free association, the hallmark of Freudian analysis” does point to the transcendence of time and toward “mental health-through an appreciation of the non-rational and non-teleological in the individual”, other factors, they argue, defeat the realization of these ends. They believe that only through the “transcendence of structure” can the meaning of existence emerge in the encounter between the therapist and the patient. In order to transcend structure, the therapist must disavow his status as an authority and deny his role as a “helper.” He must insist on his own needs for satisfaction and share his emotional reactions, his fantasies and dreams with the patient. Moreover