This book examines the essential dynamics of the interpersonal situation involved in a two-party contract or-to use the word preferred by Dr. Maxwell Gitelson-compact. The author applies these dynamic principles to the psychoanalytic treatment situation, pointing out the pressures and values which can be mobilized to favor communication by the patient to the listening therapist and the extent to which these are followed by gratifications and frustrations which alter the balance in such a way as to determine a progressive course. If the reader will note the topics of the chapters listed he will observe that the reactions of both patient and therapist to each other in the interactive process or compact are carried systematically and successively to a point where separation of the contractees is logical. This over-all view will permit us to examine such familiar phenomena as transference, regression, resistance, interpretation, and so on in a perspective which gives them a clearer meaning. It will be objected that this sharpness or clarity involves certain distortions or misrepresentations, dependent upon oversimplification. But this is the perennial dilemma of the teacher: the teaching of facts and figures versus the teaching of truth.-Print ed.
