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Writing in the self psychology idiom, Trop and Stolorow use an extensive clinical example to illustrate their views on analytic empathy. They make clear that the analyst's empathic inquiry does not mean the uncritical acceptance of the patient's conscious experience, but that the analysis of defenses had to await the consolidation of certain developmental prerequisites. In the case under discussion, they saw the patient as requiring a period of "experiencing the analyst's self-delineating selfobject function," in which the analyst helps the patient trust his own subjective reality (apparently by demonstrating that he understands the patient's conscious experience). Premature defense analysis "abruptly ruptured the selfobject transference tie … leading to fragmentation of [the patient's] sense of self …" Once the patient's trust in his own subjective reality was consolidated, analysis of defenses was not only nondisruptive, it was experienced as meeting the patient's idealizing longings. It is not empathic to fail to analyze defense when the patient is ready for it. The authors conclude that interpretations should be guided by the developmental needs organizing the patient's experience in the transference.