When we differ on theoretical perspectives in psychotherapy, we regularly do so via appeals to the authority of the traditions we feel affiliated to or trained in, rather than a careful evaluation of the underlying philosophical presuppositions of those traditions. Such appeals to tradition frequently dovetail with the invocation of concepts we have a felt, clinical affinity for and find useful in our work, without over-concern for their philosophical warrant. For many of us I suspect, there's likely something of an ongoing, shifting mixture between the strength of identifications with the orientation(s) we trained in and/or now feel drawn to, the branching pursuit of fresh intellectual interests born of encounters with emerging clinical conundrums, as well as the evolution of a personal clinical technique. If certain theoretical abstractions or constructs are found to be enduringly clinically effective and useful shorthand for describing to colleagues what and why we do what we do, then the splitting of philosophical hairs over first principles might be a worthwhile pursuit in the academy or