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The article discusses the attainment of safety in psychotherapy involving dyads. Topics mentioned include case of a therapist and his patient who was traumatized as a child and who experienced helpless rage at his therapist, the disorganizing effect of traumatic affect and fear on each member of the dyad and their relationship, and the value of their commitment to each other, endurance, and tolerance.

Hoping to create my own analytic voice, I experienced complex pressure to conform to the venerated rules of American ego psychology. I could find myself looking over my shoulder, and my training could become saturated with received ideas. Using complex systems theory as a ground, I contrast the constricting pressure to conform that I experienced with three supervisors with the openness that I found with my fourth. I propose that analytic training is a nonlinear, complex developmental process that occurs in a space of "chaotic possibilities" (Glatzer-Levy, 2004) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]