What can help the novice clinician navigate first encounters with patients without overwhelming anxiety? One-size-fits-all prescriptions about what to say in sessions are generally unhelpful, but inexperienced clinicians do need some guidance. Hazanov's openness about his thoughts and feelings during sessions gives us unusual access to the trial-and-error process of creating a particular treatment for each patient. Theory can provide some useful guideposts, but I believe that each clinician needs to develop conviction about what most facilitates the therapeutic action. From my point of view, much of the “action” is in the clinical values we embody in the way we relate to the patient.