In several authors' attempts to classify the irreducible unitary representations of semisimple Lie groups, representations that are "small" play a pivotal role. The trouble is that there are too many small representations for the unitarity of all of them to be decided by direct calculations. This article proposes a technique for combining the use of intertwining operators and cohomological induction to reduce the investigation of all small representations to the investigation of just a few of them. It illustrates the technique by giving applications to analytic continuations of discrete series, both holomorphic and nonholomorphic. It includes a certain amount of expository background concerning discrete series, analytic continuations thereof, and cohomological induction.