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It is impossible to criticize Dr. Silverman's work unless, like him, we have an overall picture of the patient, including her history, development, and the past sessions; just as it is impossible to assess the financial status of an individual by looking at one week's bank statements.
However, we are asked to tell what we would say to this patient after being privy to one week's sessions, and that can have its own validity, for it is true that at times one needs only a single malignant cell in a section or one tubercle bacillus in a specimen of sputum to make a diagnosis. Likewise, one check to a massage parlor or one contribution to the Ku Klux Klan would alert us to a character trait. Our past experience and memory of the patient is invaluable; however, the repetition compulsion which causes the patient to repeat memories and experiences is also present in ourselves and can keep us firmly attached to what we remember, believe, and understand about the patient already, and we may be compelled to repeat that which we already know. Thus, we must approach each session anew and have the courage to forget the previous sessions and our knowledge and even our conscious wish to understand the patient so that each day may show us a different patient from the one we already know. If we tie that with what we learn later then we may get something like an overall picture.