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In practice even a complicated therapy doctrine may owe its influence to some simple emphasis or general tendency which spiritually sets it apart from other theories either in fact or in attribution. Sometimes when caricatures of theories clash, root problems of the subject matter previously hidden in the subclauses of the theories spring into clear visibility. That is my excuse—indeed, advertisement—for a nonscholarly consideration of four discussions of psychotherapy, by Freud, Frank, Haley, and Strupp.
Freud's theory, with its elaborate exegesis, is probably the most comprehensive theory of the mind yet offered in that it begs the fewest questions and pursues the most implications. It has, as a consequence, seized a lot of the possible plausible positions. A scholarly review would allow Freud to swallow up and mostly digest the contributions of the other three writers.* That would be a pity, because the writers are struggling with a common problem in somewhat different ways, however much the terms of their solutions can be reduced to one another. It is their different emphasis, their divergent thrust, rather than the details of their positions, that highlights the common problem. The common problem is conflict between patient and therapist.