SUMMARY.Imagination is a neglected topic in psychoanalysis and in psychotherapy because we have an inadequate conception of the phenomenon. This inadequate conception renders imaginative activity intractable to investigation. I offer a framework for thinking about imagination that remedies this defect, and I show how we might use this framework to develop a procedure by which to investigate different kinds of imaginative activity. I illustrate this procedure by investigating the kinds of imaginative activity that support two mental abilities. One is our ability to respond to fictional objects (characters in novels). The other is our ability to respond to the mental states of others ‐ an ability I refer to as psychological understanding. Phantasy characteristically operates to block an imaginative understanding of others. And I propose that a fundamental condition for a person to achieve normal object relationships is an ability toimaginethe mental life of another person. I conclude by suggesting how this framework allows us to investigate a psychotherapeutic culture. And I outline an approach to investigate the psychotherapeutic culture of a residential therapeutic communit