ABSTRACT
Psychotherapy has had a century to prepare for explicitly creating a special place, a special time, a special frame of mind, and a special communal ethos, where it has created a freedom that allows people to surpass habit and seek personal enlightenment. Electronic communication has opened to society the widest opportunity yet for the expansion of life focus into a communal force for relational connectedness. This chapter shows the expansion of life focus practices in commercial organizations, where the formation of in-house groups is flourishing, bringing employees together to learn how their emotions and attitudes affect their work. It proposes a paradigm shift that would point the healing professions beyond the remediation of psychological disturbance to a larger and more public focus. To flesh out the cultural imperative for the enhancement of life focus, the chapter also shows how this need feeds three of society's most widespread and cherished activities, namely: everyday conversation, art, and religion.
