You only remember what you feel.¹

This is an experiential journey through some of the significant experiences that have played a part in shaping my professional identity. An analyst’s work consists of accompanying the patient in a double function of observer and participant with the aim of easing mental pain and facilitating emotional growth that has been partially blocked by past traumatic experiences. Shame is considered to be a central affect appearing in the intimate space of analysis. The subjectivity emerging in the analytic dyad is the principal focus of study for contemporary psychoanalysis. Validation and recognition of the development of subjectivity in the analytic process is the base of psychic change. The psychoanalytic experience transforms the patient’s self-experience at the same time as enhancing those mental functions deriving from good personal development, such as tolerance, mental flexibility, and the capacity of considering others.