ABSTRACT
The heart of psychotherapy is contact. Contact between therapist and client encourages, fosters, supports, and invites other contact experiences. While integrative psychotherapy makes use of a broad range of concepts, the notion of contact remains basic. Often, the importance of the contact itself is overshadowed by the drama of other aspects of the therapy—an important redecision, an intervention with a Parent ego state, the reworking of a dream or fantasy. Every comment, question, paraphrase, or interpretation has two primary goals: furthering a sense of contact between therapist and client, and enhancing the client's awareness of internal sensations, experience, and memory. The client, Charles, brings to the work a host of defensive behaviors. Charles will need much more of the same kind of slow, patient work in order to build a foundation of trust that will eventually allow him to let down his defensive barriers.
