How do we know such moments which Dennis Duncan (1990) calls ‘the feel of the session’? Is it possible to gain this understanding through psychoanalytic training? Certainly it helps when we learn how to be quiet and listen. Is knowledge of this ability to be found in the texts on ego psychology or object relations or theories of the subject? How could it be? And yet, knowing how to follow the analysand’s moods in the session – dispositions that punctuate the hour with significance – is one of the most important clinical skills the analyst can possess. I think the ability to move into the
