ABSTRACT
While it is true that the proper technique of psychoanalysis involves sitting behind the patient, out of sight, this does not have to render the relationship unfriendly. Analysts are famous for not answering questions, but there are reasons for that. The use of the word conversation to describe 'warmer' therapeutic encounters is also evident in work derived from analytic practice, such as Robert Hobson's. It is a useful term for the process of therapy in that it shows that some kind of exchange is taking place. The comparison of the therapeutic encounter with mother-baby interaction is a basic assumption of psychoanalysis, but one which has been censored during the evolution of family therapy. Modern therapists have grown up with the ghastly revelations of sexual abuse, which we now know took place on a far greater scale than could have been believed in the past.
