Psychoanalysis is always thought of as a science which is strictly connected to the analytical process: we are used to saying that the theoretical and clinical components are inseparable, and that therapy and knowledge, despite their well-known complex distinctions, are inextricably linked.

However, if the theoretical and clinical components are inseparable, theory and technique are not to the same degree, or at least they were not from the beginning. This is inevitable, due to the ambivalent nature of psychoanalysis: science and art at the same time. Technique stems from the art of psychoanalysis (the artifice, the know-how), i.e. that particular way of treating psychoanalytic matters which does not come ‘naturally’, even though, paradoxically, its aim is to favour a psychological performance which is as near as possible to the natural psychoanalytic function of the mind (Di Chiara et al., 1985).