Client Therapist Relationship

In my previous article, I discussed some of my thoughts from a therapist's point of view. This is a continuation of that article with emphasis on the therapist-client relationship.

I guess that words to describe the relationship might include safe, non-threatening, different and positive. There are probably a lot more, but these encompass, for me, what therapy is about. It is supposed to be a place in which the client, no matter who he is or what he has done, is accepted for who he is (what he has done may, of course, be totally unacceptable - but then, that is his behavior, and not his core). Some years ago, I was very involved with helping people who had been injured on duty. These people usually landed up suing the company, and providing major headaches for them. But whenever others moaned, I would often say something to the effect of "but I really like him", to which my boss would reply - "but that is good - you are supposed to like your clients". Nothing could be more true.

More than that, though, therapy acts in a different way to the way which your client is accustomed, the way the majority of important others in your client's life have reacted. And this is why he feels safe, and also why he is intrigued enough to listen. Take a depressed patient, for argument's sake. Every important person in his life is continually telling him just how wonderful the world really is, and for him to "wake up and smell the roses". The therapist, on the other hand, allows him to be depressed, and asks him to describe it. The therapist does not try to get rid of it or pretend it is not there, and so, slowly the client is taught to work with it, instead of being made to feel even more hopeless than he already does.

As a therapist, I am also an objective observer, and this ensures that the client is often more likely to take advice from me than from significant others in his life. I find this particularly true when conducting marriage counseling. A fish does not know he swims in water, and neither do the partners in a marriage necessarily realize the effect they are having on one another. I love doing marriage counseling as it is so rewarding. One can see changes in front of one, because the process can be stopped by the therapist at any time, and labeled. What I mean here is, as a therapist you have the right (and the responsibility) to tell them what you see, and make their interactional patterns

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic