ABSTRACT
Tolstoy's life was an endless struggle between pleasure-seeking, working Guilty Man and self-expression-seeking, creative Tragic Man. Luckily, Tragic Man predominated for sufficiently long periods to allow him to create novels which, like all great works of literature, revitalize those who are open to being affected by them. Having briefly examined instances where there is no serious tension between the sector of pleasure-seeking Guilty Man and the sector of self-expression-seeking Tragic Man, psychoanalyst turn to those where there is conflict and disharmony. The analyst's acceptance of the fact that the psychoanalytic process must encompass the recognition of the needs of the self enables him to become tolerant vis-a-vis the analysand's hope that he will obtain empathic responses concerning his ambitions and his idealizing needs. Psychoanalyst endorsement of Freud s affirmation of the primacy of observation in psychoanalysis may warrant a qualifying statement.
