Using the film, Morvern Callar, directed by Lynne Ramsay (2002a) in order to reflect on the impact of the countertransference, the author suggests that film is a powerful medium which can be used to communicate intense emotional and preverbal states, and to make sense of certain key psychoanalytic concepts via a direct emotional experience. Describing the film's narrative, with particular reference to the central character, she links this with predominantly Kleinian psychoanalytic thinking about schizoid states, and puts forward the idea that, by watching the film in a particular way, non-clinical students may have the proto-experience of aspects of clinical work, especially those linked with the countertransference. This, she suggests, offers a bridge towards clinical experience possibly obtained at a later date, where emotional states may be projected into the clinician.