ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the impact a sense of discrepancy between therapist and patient. Elaine appeared to experience Susan as more alien than Jackie experienced Tina. Nevertheless, there were moments when the differences between therapist and patient peaked, and therapist seemed too good for patient. Some difficulties that therapists and patients face arise when either one in the pair seems too good for the other. The painful consequences of such a situation was brought home when a therapist sought help with the serious suicide attempt of her patient. The double-edged effect of aliveness is something a therapist must catch onto as time goes on. Therapists who work with dead and fragmented patients need to develop sensitivity to the impact their own fluctuating aliveness-deadness is having. If Elaine really felt how much her goodness and aliveness hurt Susan, something in her touch might soften.
