ABSTRACT
However, there has been a price for these reformative developments, and the outlines of that price are becoming clear. First, I refer to contemporary therapy’s increasing specialization. We will soon be, if we are not already, threatened by a chaos of competing practices. Second, we are threatened by the limitations inherent in the respective points of view. While they are salient within their own domains, they tend to be simplistic or devitalizing when applied beyond those domains. (See, for example, the concerns expressed by May, 1967; Wampold, 2001; Wertz, 1993; Westen, Novotny, & ompsonBrenner, 2004.)
Put plainly, we need a therapeutic foundation that will do justice to both our diversity and our particularity, our freedom and our limits. Such a foundation would view human beings in their fullness while carefully acknowledging their tragedy and incompleteness. It would honor our biological and mechanical propensities, but not at the cost of compromising our capacity to
create and transcend ordinary consciousness. What, specically, would such a foundation look like? Consider the following vignette* for an illustration:.
