ABSTRACT
The growth process, like the person within whom it is operating, is a mystery that can never be fully explained. This book is my attempt to think about that mystery, partly by circling around it and examining it from different vantage points and partly by exploring how analysts1 can impact it constructively. Much of the literature focuses on what the clinician can say to affect the patient. Here I will present a perspective that radically questions the centrality of the therapist’s interpretations or comments.2 The analyst’s feeling and thinking and being turn out to be much more important than what she says to the patient (although her feelings and thoughts will obviously affect what she says).
