If I know the goal of a person I know in a general way what will happen. I am in a position to bring into their proper order each of the successive movements made. . . . We must remember that the person under observation would not know what to do with himself were he not oriented toward some goal . . . which determines his life- line ... the psychic life of man is made to fit into the fifth act like a character drawn by a good dramatist . . . every psychic phenomenon, if it is to give us any understanding of a person, can only be grasped and understood if regarded as a preparation for some goal ... an attempt at a planned final compensation and a (secret) life plan . . . the life plan remains in the unconscious, so that the patient may believe that an implacable fate and not a long-prepared and long-meditated plan for which he alone is responsible, is at work. . . . Such a man concludes his account and reconciles himself with life by constructing one or a number of