The encounter with emotional reality—with one’s own and other people's feelings—lies at the heart of psychoanalytic work. This is an encounter that inevitably stirs an emotional turbulence. While an analytic session may appear featureless or devoid of interest, the analyst, attuned to the deeper layers of the analytic experience, is aware of the presence of an intense emotional experience. However, this emotional reality often hovers just beyond our awareness – elusive and ineffable; a gut feeling or a thought in search of a thinker to think it. It is a psychic reality which the words often conceal, obscure, or distract us from.

How, then, can we get in touch with this psychic reality? How do we make contact with emotional pain the patient brings, which the patient may not yet be aware of? And in what language can we convey this to the patient? Do the words reveal psychic reality, or do they sometimes obscure or distort it?