ABSTRACT
I sometimes half-jokingly ask colleagues and friends, out of all the myriad interpretations they have given and received over their long years of analysis and therapy, how many they can now recall. There is a shocked pause while memory files are hurriedly scanned; when the answer does come, it is invariably in single figures. Whatever it is that helps people about psychotherapy in long run, it seems unlikely that specific interpretations can be the whole story. It is the medium, not the message, that lasts, although language remains an indispensable ‘fixative’ of developmental change. In that spirit, the valedictory summary below lists ten main points that have informed the making of this book, hoping that some at least may endure once the rest has faded.
