There is a logic behind human conduct, although it does not reveal itself through conventional reasoning skills.

This brings me to the psychoanalytic perspective and its major advantage over other approaches, namely, its ready acceptance that humans are motivated, for the most part, by factors far beyond their conscious awareness.

Instead, what appears to be of greatest benefit to patients is the genuineness and persuasiveness of therapists - qualities neither of which are especially flexible in professional training. But as counselling psychologist Paul Moloney points out, if warmth and confidence are the calling cards of successful psychotherapists, then it is worth observing that this principle - and I quote him with some reluctance - “applies equally to politicians, salespeople and prostitutes”.

You ask yourself: What is the underlying plot in my client’s story? What is the main emotion? Where is she trying to take me in understanding her? What is her preoccupation? The questions you ask yourself grow darker. How does she unconsciously interfere with the therapy? Is she leaving out important parts of the story? What is her bias? These questions make your listening suitably complex and sophisticated. A good listener is not just someone who hears everything but someone who hears what is not spoken or what has been suppressed or mangled. The therapist is a detective sometimes, knowing that the client, although wanting to be open and honest, won’t tell you the whole story. You don’t let this situation make you cynical. You can still love and admire your client. You simply know that human nature is complicated and the deep stories are slow to emerge. Resistance is not usually intentional but rather an expression of the neurosis.

Boredom can be a useful tool for a psychoanalyst. It can be a sign that the patient is avoiding a particular subject; that he or she is unable to talk directly about something intimate or embarrassing. Or it can mean that patient and psychoanalyst are stuck; the patient is returning again and again to some desire or grievance that the psychoanalyst is failing to tackle. A boring person might be feeling envious, and might kill a conversation – disrupting it or paralysing it – because he cannot bear to hear a helpful or compelling idea coming from someone else. Or the boring patient may be playing possum – just as there are beasts in the jungle that survive by playing dead, some people, when frightened, simply shut down. It’s also true that psychoanalyst and patient will sometimes unconsciously collude to desiccate the atmosphere between them because they fear things becoming too emotionally disturbed, or too exciting.

Think about the impasse,’ she said. ‘You know that when there’s a deadlock it’s usually because the impasse serves some function for both the patient and the analyst. Think of this deadlock as an obstacle that the two of you have created. What purpose does it serve you?