The paper explores possible similarities between falling ill after being infected by transmitted disease and the transformation that can occur after receiving a grain of something psychically foreign transmitted through human communication – whether it takes place in the primal situation of the mother/infant dyad, in the clinical situation of psychoanalytic treatment or in psychoanalytic training. The author argues that in order to gain transformative insight (learn), one must necessarily put oneself at risk, as there is no absolute way of knowing beforehand whether the incorporated aspects of the other embedded in interpretation and (enigmatic) messages also contain ‘pathogens’ and both analyst and analysand are exposed to this risk. The analogy is further used to highlight the specificity of psychoanalysis compared to other contemporary psychodynamic approaches and to make a plea for the preservation of the radicality of psychoanalysis in contemporary times.