Some impressions regarding conflict, defect, and deficit

A distinction is drawn between "deficits" and "defects." A variety of clinical and theoretical issues is discussed with regard to each, including their involvement in conflict. The central thrust of the paper is "diagnostic" in the general sense of attempting to delineate varying elements of mental life. But inevitably such a delineation has technical implications, and these, too, are discussed. The question of how analytic change takes place is necessarily related to our concept of what there is to be changed.