Moments of Love: Embodied attunement in the therapeutic relationship

'Almost like a buzzing of energy - I could feel my blood moving, a warmth spreading through my torso. A feeling of being very deeply anchored in the moment. An intense moment of contact and relatedness.'

That moment where you look at one another with tears in your eyes. Where you feel you understand each other completely. You feel a bodily resonance, the aliveness of your blood, and there is a sense of expansion as you experience this moment of deep connection. What is happening in our minds and bodies during these moments of profound relatedness? How do we make sense of them - and what meaning do they hold for us?

This book explores these moments of profound contact between client and therapist: experiences that feel, in their intensity and intimacy, like moments of love. Drawing on decades of psychotherapy and counselling literature, Emma Swales examines how these experiences have been understood, named, and navigated across the helping professions.

Written for qualified and trainee counsellors, psychotherapists, supervisors, and other helping professionals whose work draws on the therapeutic relationship, this book will help readers recognise, understand, and respond to these moments in an informed and ethical way - using them to offer genuinely healing experiences and deepen the bonds that make change possible.

A compelling exploration of a fundamentally human experience.