ABSTRACT
The decision to undertake a career as an analyst is a choice only in the loosest sense of the word. In retrospect, one finds a pattern marked out in childhood, the fabric later woven on the looms of adolescence and adulthood. Being an analyst is “who one is” and who our patients, ever resourceful if demanding teachers, help us to become. Despite a clinical training for which I am endlessly grateful, theory was a mere accompaniment on a never-ending journey to learn a skill that requires both intellect and, ultimately, the capacity to love.
