She was a well-educated, well-rounded psychoanalyst, no longer a beginner, so she had a phrase to call what she experienced when she started at the new program: it was a narcissistic blow. She observed masters at work, and she realized that she could not work half that well—not because the instructors were innately so much more talented or intelligent but because they stood on the shoulders of their predecessors, who stood on the shoulders of their predecessors, who stood on the shoulders of giants.
