The foregoing clinical vignettes are an example of alternating waves of
experiential and reflective work. The initial experiential work of mir-
roring a patient's affective experience to bypass defenses deepens the
patient's experience of extremely painful affects. The therapist's reso-
nance deepens the patient's experience of her pain: in so doing, she is
able to show someone what she truly goes through, not just talk about
it. The depth of the experience allows her to reach the pit where
painful affects--rendered close to unbearable by her aloneness with
them--turn to suicidal considerations. The patient is deeply connected
with the therapist, yet her mood is driven by the content of actual
experience, and relational closeness is revealed in the patient's open-
ness--but it is not something she is directly in touch with. Unless it is
focused on, she could well walk away from the session immersed in the
black and empty isolation she's describing without experiential access
to the relational experience she has just been through.

The reflective work shifts the focus of her experience from "what
do you experience?" and "how do you experience your pain, your
aloneness?" to "what is it like for you to share your pain and your
aloneness with me?" Background and foreground shift. The patient is
asked to reflect on an aspect of experience that was implicit until the
beam of reflection shone on it: once in focus, therapist and patient shift
back and forth between experiential and reflective work with the rela-
tional connection.

Fewer than twenty minutes elapsed since the beginning of segment
2. Breathing better, feeling lighter, and thriving on showing the private
self to someone else is a long way from blackness, emptiness, and the
specter of suicide.

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