ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that psychotherapy "works" in the same way that life works, only in a more concentrated form by intensifying and containing specific processes that occur in all living developing systems. It explores aspects of the developing paradigm of contemporary psychotherapy, which is itself a product of social and cultural change and crisis. Deep reorganization of the self in psychotherapy occurs through the deepening and expansion of relational capacity in the client. The chapter shows how this capacity includes aspects such as rhythm, intensity, orientation, and reversal of perspective that embrace both verbal and non-verbal processes. Countertransference is characterized by an extreme sensitivity to relational cues—the therapist has a capacity to resonate to such a degree that quite subtle bodily states can be caught and amplified. Indeed, the therapist allows the client to evoke specific modes of relating in them.
