This article presents the author's reactions to a client who saw him for one visit, came 20 minutes late, demanded ideal “parenting,” called during the following two weeks, and one day left flowers in his waiting room. The focus is on the failed meeting, the meeting that did not take place, loss, and longing. The aim is to go beyond diagnostic categories to the place where therapy fails, the edge of what is therapeutically possible.

Dwelling with therapeutic incapacity in a full and detailed way—letting “it” speak—may help to stimulate evolution of capacities needed to work with individuals who now slip away from what therapy can do.