Abstract

Repair is an essential ingredient in the patient/therapist dyad, since ruptures are a naturally occurring part of all relationships. Through the process of repair, patients can heal within the context of therapy, in addition to extending this healing throughout other relationships in their lives, both past and present. Therapists can attend to ruptures that occur within the therapeutic relationship and actively facilitate repair of such ruptures, appreciating the patient’s experience, acknowledging their own part in the rupture, appropriately sharing their personal experience of the interaction, and providing a corrective emotional experience. This paper presents a detailed transcript of a patient’s videotaped session in which the process of rupture, repair, growth, and celebration takes place. The dynamics and moment-to-moment processing of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) are delineated throughout the manuscript, including concepts such as red-signal affects, green-signal affects, mastery affects, healing affects, heralding affects, emotional engagement, intersubjectivity, deepening positive affect, and the therapeutic interventions which facilitate this process. The manuscript also illustrates the significance of attending to the celebration phase of the session, in many ways the ethos of the AEDP model. Through privileging the positive, transformation takes place.

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