«I am my own most important therapist»

Dynamic Containing with a refugee

Abstract

This article presents Dynamic Containing, an ontotherapeutic process model that emerged from integrative and clinical-philosophical psychotherapy with refugees. It was developed in response to the increasing fragmentation and standardization within the field of psychotherapy and identifies four essential components of the therapeutic process: 1. Self-Containing – the capacity for internal self-regulation, 2. Therapeutic Containing – the holding function of the therapeutic relationship, 3. Psychotherapeutic Interventions – both specific and non-specific, and 4. Therapeutic Self-Organization – the client’s autonomous healing processes. The model is illustrated by a detailed case study of a refugee woman from Africa who, following traumatic experiences, received psychosocial and psychotherapeutic support as part of a stepped-care approach. Through trauma education, body-oriented empowerment exercises, ego-state work, narrative exposure and other methods, she gradually developed a sense of agency and concluded with the words: «I myself am my most important therapist.» The model is embedded in a four-frame structure that links individual healing to social participation (Normative Empowerment). Dynamic Containing offers a transdisciplinary, integrative framework – particularly suited for work with refugees – and contributes to current debates on evidence-based practice, humanistic approaches, and epistemological pluralism in psychotherapy research and policy.