ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author aims to illuminate the clinical theories that therapists carry with them into sessions where they operate implicitly, directing their attention to select sorts of data that are then used to fashion an intervention. This, then, is the ultimate lesson of the Clinical Moments Project—to learn how to listen to how therapists listen to unfolding material. The author talks about analysts ("commentators") of varying theoretical persuasions to weigh in, sharing what they think about the situation and how they imagine they might have proceeded. The clinical moment brings together two noteworthy clinical features – one, having to do with countertransference enactments; the other, related to the matter of extra-analytic encounters. The term countertransference enactment was first introduced by Ted Jacobs to describe the reliving of unconscious emotional experiences involved in the analytic relationship. Chused distinguishes enactments from projective identification by stating that “enactments occur when an attempt to actualize a transference fantasy elicits a countertransference reaction”.
