There are patients who follow the analysis with the greatest interest without making the slightest improvement, remaining extraordinarily productive in phantasies, although the whole development of their neurosis, even to the smallest details, has been brought to light. A physician under the influence of the historical view might be thus easily thrown into confusion, and would have to ask himself: What is there in this case still to be analyzed? Those are just the cases of which I spoke before, where it is no longer a matter of the analysis of the historical material, but we have now to face a practical problem, the overcoming of the inadequate infantile attitude of mind. Of course, the historical analysis would show repeatedly that the patient had a childish attitude towards his physician, but it would not bring us any solution of the question how that attitude could be changed. To a certain extent, this serious disadvantage of transference is found in every case. Gradually it has been proved that this part of psychoanalysis is, considered from a scientific standpoint, extraordinarily interesting and of great value, but in its practical aspect, of less importance than that which has now to follow, namely, the _analysis of the transference_. Confession and Psychoanalysis Before we enter into a more detailed consideration of this practical part of psychoanalysis, I should like to mention a parallelism between the first part of psychoanalysis and a historical institution of our civilization. It is not difficult to guess this parallelism. We find it in the religious institution called _confession_. By nothing are people more cut off from fellowship with others than by a secret borne about within them. It is not that a secret actually cuts off a person from communicating with his fellows, yet somehow personal secrets which are zealously guarded do have this effect. “Sinful” deeds and thoughts, for instance, are the secrets which separate one person from another. Great relief is therefore gained by confessing them. This relief is due to the re-admission of the individual to the community. His loneliness, which was so difficult to bear, ceases. Herein lies the essential value of the confession. But this confession means at the same time, through the phenomenon of transference and its unconscious phantasies, that the individual becomes tied to his confessor. This was probably instinctively intended by the Church. The fact that perhaps the greater part of humanity wants to be guided, justifies the moral value attributed to this institution by the Church. The priest is furnished with all the attributes of paternal authority, and upon him rests the obligation to guide his congregation, just as a father guides his children. Thus the priest replaces the parents and to a certain extent frees his people from their infantile bonds. In so far as the priest is a highly moral personality, with a nobility of soul, and an adequate