The Therapeutic Relationship

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Client perception: that the client perceives, to at least a minimal degree, the therapist’s positive regard and empathic understanding. http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/outreach/occyshn/training-education/upload/DevelopingTheraputicRelationships_Ch10.pdf [ dead link] The therapeutic relationship refers to the relationship between a healthcare professional and a client or patient. It is the means by which a therapist and a client hope to engage with each other and effect beneficial change in the client. Integrative Psychotherapy: The Art and Science of Relationship,by Janet Moursund & Richard Erskine. The transferential/countertransferential relationship refers to the idea that we may remind a client of someone from their past, or vice versa, and the related feelings from the past may be transferred to the present, so affecting the therapeutic relationship. If this happens, it is important to explore the issue in supervision.

Therapeutic Relationships - Arnes The Five Therapeutic Relationships - Arnes

Therapist empathic understanding: The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference. Accurate empathy on the part of the therapist helps the client believe the therapist's unconditional regard for them. The RRP is the suggested or Recommended Retail Price of a product, set by the publisher or manufacturer. Many clients come to see therapists as the ‘good enough other’ the idea that at some level they emotionally take on the therapist as a ‘parent figure’ to support them during the personal growth that hopefully takes place during therapy, Clarkson described this as:Research on the working alliance suggests that it is a strong predictor of psychotherapy or counseling client outcome. [8] Also, the way in which the working alliance unfolds has been found to be related to client outcomes. Generally, an alliance that experiences a rupture that is repaired is related to better outcomes than an alliance with no ruptures, or an alliance with a rupture that is not repaired. Also, in successful cases of brief therapy, the working alliance has been found to follow a high-low-high pattern over the course of the therapy. [9] Therapeutic alliance has been found to be effective in treating adolescents with PTSD, with the strongest alliances were associated with the greatest improvement in PTSD symptoms. [ citation needed] Regardless of other treatment procedures, studies have shown that the degree to which traumatized adolescents feel a connection with their therapist greatly affects how well they do during treatment. [10] Necessary and sufficient conditions [ edit ] Our use of self is not something we do to the client. Instead, it emerges within the specific relationship and evolves as we adapt – over time – to the client’s needs and the relational context while they adapt to us. What is beneficial for one client could be problematic, even harmful, for another. Reaching out to comfort someone by holding their hand can be experienced as a lovely, supportive gesture. But in another context, or with another individual, it could be interpreted as patronising, invasive or even threatening. While a forceful challenge may help inspire a client to break with past patterns and behave differently, it could also nudge a client into a freeze or flight response. Our art involves attuning to the needs of both client and the therapeutic relationship towards evaluating when and how to intervene. Born in South Africa, she came to England in 1976 and became an authoritative voice in the world of psychotherapy, specifically developing a European perspective of Gestalt therapy. What do our therapeutic relationships with clients involve? How do we create a safe space for clients to go exploring? What are we doing when we show clients respect and caring, attuned attention or when we challenge them to grow? How is our way of being with clients therapeutic? These questions around ‘doing’ and ‘being’ all relate to the idea of therapeutic use of self which can be defined as: "A therapist’s thoughtful, deliberate effort to use their self as a tool, one which embodies a self-aware therapeutic way of being in the service of clients and the client-therapist relationship" (Finlay, 2022, p. 1). The person-to-person relationship is the core or real emotional connection – as opposed to a professional relationship with say your doctor or dentist.

The Therapeutic Relationship : Petruska Clarkson

Given time the client begins to trust their own judgment and the need to use the therapist as an emotional support lessens, at this point therapy usually comes to an end. Therapist congruence, or genuineness: The therapist is congruent within the therapeutic relationship. The therapist is deeply involved, they are not 'acting' and they can draw on their own experiences (self-disclosure) to facilitate the relationship. Counselling and psychotherapy relies to a great extent on building a human connection with clients, where a deep level of trust is established, this transcends any modality, this is seen to a great extent in the work of Carl Rogers. For example, quantitative research is good for measuring things, providing objective statistics, but can be narrow and requires very careful choice and phrasing of questions. Qualitative research is open-ended and potentially more flexible, but is time-consuming and may be subject to researcher bias.

The reparative/developmentally needed relationship is based on the client viewing the therapist as a parent figure to support them during the personal growth that takes place in therapy. This may be especially so for clients who experienced poor parenting as youngsters. In time, the client begins to trust their own judgement and so needs the therapist less (at which point therapy comes to an end).