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The author describes the difference between empathy and sympathy and insists on the importance of avoiding the possibility to confuse them. Empathy plays a major role in the analyst's listening and the tact of the interventions. The role of analysts is not to formulate definitive truths according to their theories, but, like passers, to assist analysands in "their" discovery of the roots of their internal conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focussing on the first interview and reflecting the two major themes underlying all the papers--the constant analysis of counter-transference and the need for quite real external third party in the treatment of the most serious pathologies-- the author shows that it is not enough to cling to the representations we have of patients, but that it is important to inquire into their conceptions of their problems and how they foresee the psychoanalyst's help. If the patients' "therapeutic theory" differs from what we are thinking about proposing to them, it is advisable to explain it to them briefly and to allow them to reflect upon it when we are not present. The goal is to show them that we are not placing ourselves in a relationship in which a therapist prescribes a treatment to a sick person, but that we are offering them a collaborative relationship. This usually makes it possible to avoid too frequent premature interruptions, which are admittedly disappointing for the therapist, but above all harmful for the patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]