Improvisation in psychoanalysis has heretofore been defined by a theater games model in which the emphasis is on a creative exchange of dialogue. That dialogue focuses on maintaining an established story line. In this paper, I expand the concept of improvisation by drawing on the contributions of Sanford Meisner. In his model, two improvisers through mutual influence maintain affective engagement. Dialogue emerges unpredictably out of that affective engagement and facilitates it. Meisner described this process as “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Clinical case material illustrates how a Meisner improvisation can be applied to circumstances in which the analyst is pushed beyond familiar analytic comfort zones. Such an improvisation provides the analyst with an additional resource with which to respond to these challenging moments in ways that facilitate increasing intimacy between patient and analyst. I spell out how a Meisner improvisation impacts therapeutic action in psychoanalysis.