ABSTRACT
Psychotherapy's social impact has gone far beyond helping those people who need psychological treatment: it now has a large influence on everyday people's lives. This chapter includes only a sample of psychotherapy's many contributions to the popularization of life focus and illustrates it with selections from gestalt therapy, Martin Seligman's positive psychology, the mindfulness movement, and Ericksonian hypnosis. A seminal contribution to a communal application of psychotherapy is the work of Martin Seligman, whose concepts have attracted large numbers of psychotherapy professionals. There is an important arc to be drawn between the psychotherapy setting and the everyday life situation. The chapter shows some of the psychotherapeutic influence as it has become embedded into the everyday cultural activity. The belief systems of the religious and psychotherapeutic relational groups are differently conceived and worded, but they are both dedicated to the enhancement of people's skills for paying attention to their lives.
