ABSTRACT
People who come, of their own volition, to psychotherapy, do so for all sorts of conscious reasons: to rid themselves of pain, to understand themselves better, and so on. As the psychotherapeutic situation develops, the crucial need of the patient is to be understood, valued, loved, and respected by the therapist as an equal, fellow human being. Certain features of psychoanalytic techniques can be understood in the context of what neuropathologists wrote at the end of the nineteenth century about the 'diabolical cleverness' of hysterics in deceiving the therapist and involving him in their games. Transference is the corner-stone of contemporary psychotherapeutic method. It is the means by which the therapist learns things about the patient which the latter cannot tell him in words. Transference manifestations occur – as is well-known – in ordinary living and are not inhibited by spontaneous emotional responses in others.
