In this paper I have suggested that the analytic attitude is the contribution to psychiatry generally and should, at least to the extent of respecting the significance of and the security provided by symptoms in terms of the patient's psychic reality, characterise every form of psychotherapeutic intervention. I have also sought to make explicit and extend understanding of non-defensive passivity. The latter is implicit in Schafer's advocacy of action language and specifically referred to in his mention of excessive claiming of agency, and in his references to necessity, accidents and happenings (1982, pp. 100, 106).