A popular model of psychotherapy as a rational, linear, and instrumental treatment that can be mastered and planned by the therapist is critiqued as an idealized fantasy. This model, which often underpins cognitive behavioral therapy and a medical approach to therapy, is contrasted with an alternative model based on attentiveness to the therapeutic process defined as an emergent and unpredictable thirdness between therapist and client. Three principles of a process-oriented therapy are described and illustrated through case vignettes. Each of these principles is shown to contradict the assumptions of a rational/planning approach to therapy and therefore to undermine the rational endeavor to "plan" treatment. A process-oriented model of therapy is argued to be a more ethical choice due to the fact that it avoids the moralism and authoritarianism of the rational/planning approach to therapy and has a more radical therapeutic aim that circumvents conventional definitions of what good outcome is or should be.