Despite the enormous opportunities for exploration and discovery of the motivational basis for human behavior that followed from the work of Freud, classical psychoanalytic theories have foundered in their attempts to describe events at the intersection of external and internal reality in the mind of the individual or in the interaction between individuals or among members of groups. Increasingly, contemporary psychoanalytic theorists have questioned the validity of the positivistic assumptions inherent in the traditional, classical view of an objective, neutral, and abstinent observing analyst interpreting to a subjective, emotionally involved, experiencing patient. Instead, they have proposed that we view the analytic relationship—and, indeed, all human development and interactions—through the lens of phenomenology. When seen in this light, the analytic encounter appears