ABSTRACT
Psychoanalytic psychotherapies on the couch, and psychoanalysis conducted with a reduced frequency of sessions, occupy an intermediate position where psychotherapists and psychoanalysts have much in common. In order to continue making a contribution to an understanding of the new conditions of life and the new social subject, psychoanalysis must avail itself of all its knowledge and interpretative procedures, avoiding both inflexibility and the drift towards oversimplified types of psychotherapy. In the case of psychotherapy, the analyst concentrates on what the patient says in relation to the issue that they have jointly decided to work on; this issue may change during the therapeutic process. The psychotherapist focuses mainly on the "there-and-then" of when the problem appeared. When intervening, the psychotherapist may at times abandon the equidistant position from the id, the ego, and the superego; but as Hautmann points out, the psychotherapist must try to reestablish it immediately.
