ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that there is a level at which analytical meaning is boundaryless and universal, that there is no problem about communication across cultural, gender, lifestyle and political divides. It shows that the analytical encounter, if it is operating in a certain mode, chalk can understand cheese with no serious obstruction or problem. The chapter argues that such communication is achieved through a level of understanding that passes through barriers, making contact with the seemingly uncontactable, and that the mode is empathy. It illustrates with reference to work with an abusive patient demonstrating the working of this analytical mode, and its capacity to transcend difference. The chapter demonstrates the working of radical empathy, as described by T. H. Ogden and by H. Kohut, and shows how it works like a metaphorical translator that facilitates comprehension creating an overarching bridge—or should that be a tunnel—along which meaning can flow.
