Quantum transformation in trauma and treatment: traversing the crisis of healing change.

Three ideas are discussed from the vantage point of accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP): Quantum changes operate not only in trauma, but also in healing; attachment plays a major role in whether fear or excitement is the response to novelty; experientially exploring the experience of transformation can itself lead to quantum change. Vignettes from an AEDP session show a patient's grappling with the startling novelty of experience that the transformational process, particularly when occurring in quantum leaps, evokes, and illustrate the phenomenology of cascading transformations. They illustrate how the therapist's emotional engagement and attachment orientation, experiential techniques, and metatherapeutic processing activate state transformations and entrain adaptive healing processes.