ABSTRACT
Traditional theories assigned an age-specific sensitive phase of life for the initial impress of the issues. There was thus an actual moment in time toward which theory dictated we should direct our reconstructive inquiry. The fact is that most experienced clinicians keep their developmental theories well in the background during active practice. They search with the patient through his or her remembered history to find the potent life-experience that provides the key therapeutic metaphor for understanding and changing the patient's life. The notion of a layering of different senses of the self as different forms of ongoing experience is potentially helpful in locating an organizing therapeutic metaphor. In effect, the nature of the therapeutic approach determines which domain of experience will appear to be primarily distressed. The therapeutic use of the known early history in such a case as this is determined by the features of the age period that seem most salient.
