ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the moment-to-moment decisions made by a therapist to similar compositional decisions made by a poet. Much contemporary thinking has emphasized the role of creativity and improvisation in the therapy process and has viewed such fields as music and improvisation as analogies. The chapter examines the composition of a single poem of the author’s and then examines the moment-to-moment decisions he makes during a single interchange with a patient who has expressed he is upset with his father and is dissatisfied at work.
