Speaking at the right moment

I've been doing some work to get ready for some teaching I'm going to be doing in the fall. Part of that work leads me to re-read The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Écrits (pp. 671-702 in the English edition). On page 673 there is this short simple line, which I think is very important for people who want to be analysits or psychotherapists to understand:  

The whole psychoanalytic tradition supports the view that the analyst's voice can intervene only if it enter at the right place, and that if it comes too early it merely produces a closing up.  

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What I think is important about this sentence would be:

  • It calls attention that most psychotherapists (and some analysts) will say too much too soon. It is often more effective to wait for the right moment and to say very little.
  • The reason to say less is to allow enough time/space for the analystands unconscious to show up. If you talk too soon or too much the unconscious will recoil.