ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the vital importance of emotions for psychotherapeutic work. After some introductory remarks on the theory of emotion, I put forward a model that views emotions as embodied appraisals of events and presents attentiveness towards events, core affective reaction of activated/deactivated and pleasant/unpleasant as well as concrete emotions such as anger or sadness as three aspects of emotional experience. A body psychotherapeutic task is assigned to each of these aspects and their dysfunction. Then I elucidate a model of working with the cyclic course of emotional processes and its disruption and finally the reorganisation of emotions in the context of their reflection in consciously experienced feeling.
