Psychoanalytic understanding is defined by the principle that the dynamic unconscious is ubiquitous and determining. So humbling is the principle that we are always trying to deny it, forget it or find exceptions to it. And once its power is acknowledged, the analyst can never be separated from the uncertainties of his or her own unconscious. The central question Gail Reed addresses is how the analyst, buffeted by his or her own unconscious, can provide the patient with an authoritative, yet non-authoritarian understanding. Drawing on both theory and close examination of the clinical moment, Reed offers us a new model of clinical understanding as the exploration of the individual's way of signifying his or her own unique life experience. Vivid clinical examples make this book compelling reading for clinicians and anyone else interested in how we come to know the other.