The mystical hue in clinical practice

The notion of the mystical hue in clinical practice, viewed essentially as therapist tendency to formulate understandings and interventions from a known frame of reference, is considered from the dimensions of theoretical commitment, technical style, and similarity to psychic processes. Consideration is given to reification, the projective fallacy, and the developmental tilt, for their potential reverberations in practice. Emphasis is placed on the need to formulate experience-near interventions related to the patient's subjective state consistent with the reality that existing well reasoned theory is continually subject to revision. A case is presented in which the patient's subjective experience, imbued with a mystical flavor, was best approached from a mystical perspective familiar to both patient and therapist.