It is apparent that an important part of the problem revolves around the therapist's conception of psychotherapy, its modus operandi and goals. In this paper I shall restrict my discussion to the "traditional" verbal psychotherapies, and more particularly to those on the psychodynamic model. Within this framework one may distinguish two extreme positions. The first, espoused by Freud (and now generally considered superseded), likens psychotherapy to a set of technical operations, analogous to surgery, in which the therapist, as a person, plays a negligible role. (Nonetheless, it is abundantly clear that analytic therapy is undergirded by a specific set of ethical principles.) At the other extreme, we can identify the view of psychotherapy as a unique human encounter, exemplified by client-centered, humanistic, existentialist writers, in which the therapist's personality is clearly of the utmost importance. Between these poles there are innumerable variations. In my view, the therapist's personality, including his or her values, is inextricably intertwined with the technical operations brought to bear on the dyadic interaction. Accordingly, it is meaningless to speak of techniques in the abstract, just as it is meaningless to speak of the therapist's personality in the abstract (see also Szasz, 1965, p. 39). For conceptual purposes it may be useful to make such differentiations but the patient always experiences the therapist as a whole person—to be sure a person who plays a particular role and whose behavior is circumscribed by certain constraints inherent in the therapist's professional role—but as a whole person nonetheless. Human experience does not come in pieces; it is a Gestalt.