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 the 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. Instances when a patient consciously chooses to knowingly withhold information from the analyst violate the only instruction that Sigmund Freud deemed worthy of calling a rule – the “fundamental rule.” The analyst’s desire for full disclosure is bound to cause significant difficulty if the question of the transference does not include the subtleties of the patient’s orientation to what it means for this particular patient to speak to this particular analyst.
