So the client brought the emotion into contact, maybe showed it slightly, just a nuance, but there is an effect that is popularly called “word for word”, the therapist may not immediately detect the “new” emotion in contact, but will automatically respond to it. And only after reacting do you realize what kind of emotion appeared in the contact. In principle, it is precisely this effect that interventions are based on, even in a provocative form. If the therapist has a rich assortment of emotional patterns, then, depending on the detected emotion, he can make a choice and play along, even exaggerate, strengthen the response to the new emotion invested by the client in the contact. This is exactly how empathy works. On the one hand, imitation and mirroring to the client are possible here, but the primary mechanism is a response. Especially when it is a strong emotion and directed at the therapist, as they say, negative transference, the response mechanism works much faster than mirroring. The response belongs to the contact, and the emotion that arises as a result of mirroring belongs to the therapist. In a session, it is considered important to track the client’s phenomenology and not suppress, to track your own. To some extent, this is ping-pong with emotional reactions, in which the client always has the feed. If suddenly a therapist makes a pitch, he will simply turn into a client. But the therapist can reflect the client’s presentation in different ways. It can extinguish and even catch the net, it can, on the contrary, make a candle, move away from the table, or, on the contrary, hang over the net. There can be many strategies. Freud once compared psychotherapy to chess - it is known how it begins and how it ends, but in the middle there is complete creative space. That is, depending on what figures, subpersonalities, polarities the therapist will support, such strategies for expressing emotional reactions he and will choose. It also depends on the emotional presentation of the client. If it is too strong and the client is overexcited, then it is better to dampen it, but if, on the contrary, the excitement is not enough, then you can offer a more aggressive game. The emotional reaction makes it possible to regulate the client’s arousal at the optimal level to understand the figures of need.