The psychodynamic approach to an understanding of mental disturbances can be considered a decisive step in psychopathology. It is due to this new point of view that psychopathology has overcome its merely descriptive stage and has become an explanatory science. The psychodynamic approach has also made it possible to influence psychopathologic processes in an intelligent and systematic way. It is worth while for a moment to review critically the work done and the methods employed. Such a critical review has proved necessary and fruitful in every science; for the investigator, submerged in daily work, too easily loses his orientation and is inclined to employ uncritically highly developed and specialized methods in the investigation of new subject matter. The danger of using highly specialized methods in the treatment of patients to whom they are not strictly applicable is even greater in the case of the therapeutist. I am alluding to the