The gift in therapy

Abstract This paper explores the meaning of the gift in therapy, of gift as what is given, and the various forms and meanings of giving. Its significance within various forms of exchange systems such as the commercial trade and gift exchange is explored and related to the therapeutic environment. The gift and giving are seen to occupy a strange place (event horizon might describe it better) that intersects the possible and impossible of meaning and any means–ends enterprise. Insofar as it becomes an indeterminate or impossible “thing,” the notion of gift as thing is also considered in terms of philosophical and psychoanalytic writing.