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Reading de M’Uzan’s memoir (1962) sensitises us to his way of engaging the patient in an analysis and his way of conducting the first interview, as well as to the rigour and respect of his listening throughout this analysis over a relatively short period. We trace the progress of a treatment conducted in the neurotic register with a patient who has major psychosomatic problems. We have the example of a ‘complete’ interpretation, caught in the thread of the transference, which produces a mutative effect and brings the patient back to life in a libidinal register. In his reply, de M’Uzan emphasises the attention that he was already giving to the economic and to identity crises, this guiding thread that initiated his theoretical elaboration and supported the evolution of his practice. He explains these new concepts of vital-identital, identity cornerstone, identity vacillation, as well as the better-known concepts of chimera, spectrum of identities or paradoxical system.(Traduction de Sophie Leighton.)