Quote:
Originally Posted by sarahsweets
I agree that the parameters of therapy should be set with across the board guidelines and expectations. Honestly whatever board therapists are licensed by or guided by or whatever its called should come up with a standard way of providing this information to all clients and that they should legally have to do it right at the first session. On one hand I look to the definitions :
And this in particular:
I feel like all of these definitions/examples are obvious-but I know based on what people have shared here they may not be. What do you all think causes a client/therapist relationship to be anything other than the examples above? Is it a matter of blame? Are therapist/client relationships and expectations confusing to most people or maybe just vunerable people? Do you think therapists should go over this exact definition or examples before proceeding with therapy? Would that mitigate all the harmful things people have experienced with therapy?
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I don't think it's a matter of definitions, and I don't think simply reciting these would be of any help for most people entering therapy. I think the key might be the bit about the therapeutic alliance: "the joining of a client's reasonable side with a therapist's working or analyzing side", and all the ways it can go wrong (not meant to be a comprehensive list, just some of the stuff I suspect contributed to my getting hurt in therapy):
The client's reasonable side might get sidelined because
1. transference stuff can be unexpectedly powerful and override reasoning
2. client might have problems regulating their emotions in the first place, or being in touch with their emotions at all, so even with the "reasonable side" more-or-less functional, it won't have any effect whatsoever, other than perhaps making client feel like an idiot for getting upset over nothing
3. client might have difficulty differentiating between "being reasonable" and "rationalising away stuff that's actually dangerous / harmful"
The therapist's working/analyzing side might be inefficient because
1. client's problem might be partly/entirely outside the therapist's competence. This might not be immediately obvious either, or perhaps transference/countertransference might make it difficult to recognise.
2. counter-transference stuff can be unexpectedly powerful, therapist might get lost in it if client moves too close to blind spots and sensitive points
3. (possibly, but not necessarily connected to the previous two) therapist might not have a good sense of when to use the analyzing side and/or of what to do with the non-reasonable side. Like, trying to analyse and interpret when the client is overwhelmed with emotion, or just speaking a different "emotional language" from the client.