Following Wittgenstein's consideration of ethics, the term ‘ethical moments’ describes certain moments in psychotherapy that seem not to be able to be captured in language, although language expresses something in the moment. Wittgenstein has said that the basis of ethics, and indeed of philosophy, cannot be put into either logical or empirical propositions. Expressions that arise out of ‘the existence of language’ show rather a poetic response in these moments that are felt to be profound. These expressions can be shown to be neither factual nor logical, yet nevertheless ‘hit the mark’.

Moments in psychotherapeutic practice are used to illustrate this clinically, and the nature of interpretation at these times is considered both in relation to Wittgenstein's discussion of the limits of logic and of language, and to the psychoanalytic view that not to interpret is to be seduced by the patient. It is held that in these ethical moments something transpires beyond the reach of theory-based interpretation.