In this discussion of Sally Howard’s paper, Building Shelter in a Chaotic World: The Role of Empathic Imagination in Recovery from Trauma, the author focuses on therapeutic action-what enables empathic imagination, how empathic imagination impacts our work, what we do to expand traumatized patients’ imaginative abilities, and how a developmental perspective informs and supports the therapeutic action of empathic imagination. Through a careful analysis of Howard’s clinical illustrations as well as additional illustrations from the author’s own clinical work, the author breaks down the therapist’s empathic understandings in order to demystify them and tie them to conceptual understandings. The author utilizes concepts from infant research, non-linear dynamic systems theory and self-psychology to make sense of how we arrive at our empathically imaginative ideas.