This paper presents an account of a trainee's experience of conducting one year of time-limited psychotherapy with an adult patient. It attempts to show some of the difficulties that were encountered by the trainee in this first experience of working with transference and countertransference phenomena. It also illustrates the pressures operating on a trainee offering time-limited psychotherapy and of how these were understood and worked with. The role of supervision and psychoanalytic concepts in managing these issues is discussed.