ABSTRACT
The author explores a phenomenon with which all analysts are familiar. He describes it and then examines what its implications are for theory. The author refers to it as the 'x-phenomenon' and provides some clinical examples. His contention is that the inner act of freedom in the analyst causes a therapeutic shift in the patient and new insight, learning and development in the analyst. The interpretation is essential in that it gives expression to the shift that has already occurred and makes it available to consciousness. The point though is that the essential agent of change is the inner act of the analyst and that this inner act is perceived by the patient and causes change. Even the most inner mental act has some manifest correlate that is perceptible, though this perceptibility may be unconscious and probably is. The psychotic is particularly sensitized to these minute changes.
