[Editor's note: This article is a review of Herbert Strean Controversies on Countertransference, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 269 pages, $40.00]

Herbert Strean was a man who knew how to listen. I didn't know him personally, but having read his work, I have been impressed with his capacity for empathy, his ability to really hear the people he worked with, and his own ability to change when what he heard did not jibe with what he had been taught. Trained in classical Freudian psychoanalysis, Strean began his professional transformation early in his career. One of his first papers (1959) was titled “The Use of the Patient as Consultant.” In this paper he talked about how his training left him ill-prepared for dealing with very disturbed patients, finally throwing up his hands and simply