People here often talk about their therapists and issues. Sometimes those issues seem separate from the relationship, sometimes not. Sometimes people wonder if they should approach certain topics with their therapists for either personal reasons or because the approach doesn't really "allow" for that type of discussion.

I do relational psychoanalysis. The relationship itself is one of the main focuses. It is a rather new, but powerful approach, very unlike traditional models. There is a focus on the here and now, the ongoings in the therapy context, the interactions that go on, as well as explorations both of past and future. A few here might be familiar with it, but for most it is not all that common.

Anyway I was reading about therapeutic outcomes, and found a meta-analysis that covers a broad range of different approaches and comes with the emphasis on the therapeutic relationship as a huge factor in the outcome of therapy.

The basics are that client factors make up 40% of the outcome, so that includes things like motivation, personality, etc. The placebo effect takes up about 15% of the outcome and this can mean just about anything. The technique or approach also takes up about 15%, which is pretty small actually considering how attached people are to the theoretical orientation. But the news is that the therapeutic relationship takes up about 30% of the outcome regardless of approach. That is twice the technique.

Just to point out to those who don't feel that they can use time to talk about the relationship itself. It is much much more important than the actual technique.