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Moments of spontaneity and surprise create opportunities for change to occur through perturbations in the analyst–analysand system. These moments of authentic person-to-person contact violate anticipated patterns of intersubjective engagement. Mutative potential arises from the coconstruction of new relational configurations and the resultant modifications in the procedural memory system of both members of the analytic dyad. Three moments of spontaneity and surprise from the analysis of a man with a rigid character structure are presented and discussed.