ABSTRACT
Beebe and Lachmann (2002) highlight the importance of heightened affective moments in the course of therapy and draw attention to the parallels in infant development. They de®ne heightened moments as those in which there is a fully expressive display of face or voice accompanied by heightened bodily arousal. They see these moments as a way of building the psychic structures of resilience. They include moments that occur with some frequency as well as moments that are relatively rare. `The organizing power of affectively supercharged moments . . . derives from both the infant's capacity to categorize and expect similar experiences and from the impact of the heightened affect itself' (p. 170). In contrast, they point out that research suggests that negative affective moments may actually interfere with memory. Heightened affective moments, when positive, can serve to repair disruptions. In sequences of disruption and repair, affect is transformed from positive to negative and back to positive. Some children may, through repeated experiences of rupture, develop an expectancy of non-repair that will then be subsequently revived in the therapeutic encounter. Beebe and Lachmann (2002) point out how intimately these experiences are linked to bodily states. In this sense `bodily experiences of disruption can be de®ned as those instances in which interactive regulation is inadequate to sustain self-regulation' (p. 177). In psychotherapy such experiences of disruption will be manifest in the client's body language and bodily experience. The therapist needs to be on the alert for such slight bodily changes; changes in expression, posture, bodily movements, speech, etc. that may provide clues to internal states. Noticing such changes and working with the sensations that have been evoked may well support the client to give voice to the experience of being `missed' and provide an opportunity for a reparative dialogue. Gestalt
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1923/ 1996; Hycner, 1993) appear to us to concur with what is being described here. Hycner (1993), speaking from the perspective of dialogical Gestalt therapy, talks of the `genuine meeting' between people which he views as at the heart of the process of change. The emphasis here is on the uniqueness of the meeting between two people that cannot be orchestrated in advance. Such moments are heightened affective moments of encounter that are often the hallmarks of change moments in therapy. Hycner makes the point that `techniques need to arise out of the context of the relationship' (1993: 57) so that the therapist remains open to the client's process. He compares the therapist to a good improvisational jazz musician who has much technical training but who is able to improvise music in situ. These crucial moments of meeting require a capacity for spontaneity and immediacy of response from the trained psychotherapist. There are certain ways in which the therapist can develop an attitude of preparedness for such moments, for example, by suspending presuppositions, by carefully tracking the client, by fostering a sense of wonder, and by staying open to being amazed as to what may arise in the moments of meeting (Hycner, 1993).
