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?

It [choosing] requires knowing how what happened to us influences the choices we made and continue to make. Again and again I ask my clients, ‘How are you complicit in creating the conditions of your lives that you say you don’t want?

As in so many relationships, this complex interweaving of self and Irrational Other relies on a combination of psychological transference. The Irrational Other becomes a stand-in for someone in our lives, usually from our past. They become a screen onto which we project our negative and positive qualities, those we can’t allow ourselves to acknowledge as our own.

One partner’s understandable impatience and focus on effectiveness strike us as “irrational” because it reminds us of the ways we constantly disappointed a parent. That “irrational” behavior then triggers our shame, causing us to withdraw, hide, or make a process overcomplicated, increasing the Other’s sense of impatience.

Radical self-inquiry is the path to seeing habits and patterns. Questions that drive us toward that insight are endlessly helpful:

• ‘What parts of me are being projected onto the other person?’ 

• ‘How do I reclaim those parts of me?’ 

• ‘What do my reactions say about me?’ 

• ‘Why do I do what I do?’ 

• ‘Why do they do what they do?’ 

• ‘What need for love, safety, or belonging might they be trying to meet with their irrational behavior?

How someone can see what others have not, or what they have ignored, and thereby discover a pivotal objective and create an advantage, lies at the very edge of our understanding, something glimpsed only out of the corner of our minds. Not every good strategy draws on this kind of insight, but those that do generate the extra kick that separates “ordinary excellence” from the extraordinary.