Glaring contradictions in psychoanalytic theory and methods contribute to our surrender of patients to psychopharmacological psychiatry's genetic pretensions and dedication to sedation. Disputing orthodoxy, psychiatric psychoanalysts have more often substituted fratricidal invective for clinical and theoretical clarifications. If psychoanalytic social work is burdened by fewer martyrs, we may attempt clarifications that defeated our predecessors. With that intent, ego psychology is reviewed, first, in order to clarify the relationship between theories of pathogenesis and clinical methods of treatment; second, to outline the common theoretical denominators of all psychoanalysts; and third, with the intent of initiating a continuing, systematic scientific dialogue.