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“Man first apprehends in a troubled and moved sort, and then reflects with a clear and peaceful mind”
In psychoanalytic work, the need to re-establish mental clarity and peace through elaborative reflection is truly fundamental. Such reflection, however, is not always sufficiently attainable during sessions themselves. The present paper stems precisely from the perception of this need, especially as instanced in a particulary difficult clinical situation that I shall relate in the central section of the paper; my principal concerns are the working set-up and the experience, more or less “troubled and moved”, of the analyst: scarcely new topics, but ones that seem to occupy an ever increasing space in psychoanalytic literature. Even when the analyst is sufficiently possessed of a “clear and peaceful” mind during analysis, contact and exchange can still induce a defensive internal set-up. And inadequate analytical recognition of counter-transference experiences (concordant