The analytic relationship has often been considered an implicit feature of therapy. Freud (1912), when writing of the unobjectionable transference, did not afford particular therapeutic value to the relationship, if not that of it being the driving force capable of keeping therapy going. In our paper we advance the hypothesis that the analytic relationship is a specific bond created between the analyst’s and the patient’s mind as well as a structure that sustains change. Contemporary theorizing has seen the analytic relationship, without necessarily calling it so, be considered according to various hues and tones. For patients who experienced emotional trauma in their childhood, we see the analytic relationship as a tool that enables the introjection of a new psychic object promoting development. It is our view that if the analyst’s receptiveness fails over long periods, arrests described in the literature as analytic impasses will ensue.