This chapter is concerned with the function of psychotherapy in relation to client interests and possibilities. The other party in the psychotherapeutic endeavor, the therapist, will be mentioned only to the extent that it is necessary for this purpose. Consequently, this will not be a systematic account of professional psychotherapeutic action and thinking (cf. Dreier, 1987b, 1988a, in press).

There are two sets of presuppositions on which this work is based. First, psychotherapeutic practice should essentially be directed at mediating more extended subjective possibilities for clients. They experience themselves as stuck at particular problematic points in their life contexts, both individually and with others. This deadlock is reflected in their negative subjective state and may take on an explicitly symptomatic form. They may turn to a psychotherapist, or be referred to one, with the aim of creating possibilities for themselves that do not seem to exist in their everyday lives. Faced with such demands, therapists search among available theoretical concepts for the means of defining concrete possibilities for action in order to help their clients realize the possibilities that exist under existing conditions and to create new, extended possibilities. Therapists, for their part, turn to available concepts, especially when they feel stuck with respect to the action possibilities in their concrete practice under existing conditions or when they have doubts about their success. Beyond that, many therapists, especially the critical ones, expect not only to define existing possibilities, but, more important, to establish a basis for extending them.