I have had some difficulty in sorting out my reactions to this paper, which I partly value, and partly find frustrating. Plaut says that he is assuming that he is talking to a small and friendly group; I will do the same and talk in terms of my personal responses.

I will start by questioning the title, which I found misleading. The main theme of the paper seemed to me to refer to the sub-title ‘Learning from experience’. ‘What we actually do’ seemed a secondary consideration, a means to the end of learning. In his summary Plaut states that the two methods of learning which he has described are supplementary to ‘the analysis of individual countertransference situations’. This statement helped me to