The relationship is the therapy

The cynical part of me says it's a blank check from me to the T. Because the relationship will always be there, the client has no clear sense that the work is "done."

For me, I've always gone into therapy with a goal and once I've licked that particular problem or grown in some particular way, the therapy is over.

I need to know I'm getting something concrete out of therapy for ME. But that's just my $.02

My former T who I spent 10 years with never said the relationship is the therapy in those words but she talked a lot about interpersonal wounds and how they are healed in relationship with someone who is caring, has boundaries, models appropriate responses, and behavior etc. i.e. her. I definitely think some of my issues or a lot of them come from my childhood and not getting my needs met there. So it makes sense that addressing them now as an adult is the only way they are going to get healed. Now did they? Beats me. But I do think that some of them got better. Maybe not healed, but they aren't as gaping and open as before. My former T was very relationship based (I don't know what her exact modality was but she talked about relationship a lot). It worked well for me for a lot of years. Unfortunately I am grieving her loss now so much. I think there could be new wounds from the loss or maybe that's just the grief talking. I did try CBT this Summer and had a horrible experience. Maybe it was just the T. She was horrible. And mean. And put me down. She wasn't interested in my goals, just her goals. It was a mess.

Good topic. As a coincidence my therapist said to me yesteraday that "it´s not about the method but about the relationship". I agree to some extent but those who think it´s mostly about the relationship are wrong in the way I see it.

To be able to form a sound and healing relationship with a client a therapist needs to be grounded in a good therapeutic method/methods. I think therapists who says "it´s mostly about our relationship" says that because he/she lacks the competence to go further than just the relationship per se.

I agree the relationship can be healing to some extent but what one has to remember is that that relationship won´t last and the therapist needs to guide and "learn" the client to cope better. That´s NOT learned solely through the relationship but by knowing how to both understand the underlying problems (traumas) AND present strategies.


This push and pull is something that could stem from childhood and some reactions are based on your "younger one" as your T says. BUT and this is a large but, knowing this and explaining this to you won´t make you act in another way or prepare you for "the real world" in a better way.

Explaining things, which my T often does, is only part of the healing, if one just comes and goes to therapy and expresses joy, hurt, fear and similar but never adresses ways of adapting in a more concrete way, then there won´t be a deeper healing. As I see it.

I believe 100% that the relationship is the therapy. In other words, therapy works through the therapeutic relationship. My T doesn't believe it. He's very focused on skills building. That's why we always fought so much. Because I never wanted to learn any skills. I believed the relationship was the key, and if we worked on our relationship, everything else would work out. I trusted the process. He wanted to do other things. But I was right, hah!

If I did not have a relationship with my therapist then I could not do the work because I would not trust him, I could not be vulnerable with him, I would never want to go. Something has to keep drawing me back to session because it is hard work talking about trauma and reprocessing. He is the firs reason I go back the second reason is I want to live a better life and not want to die all the time or be full of anxiety.

I don't think it matters if the client is gun shy or not; the Ts that are still thinking it are just as problematic. The problem with such practice is that it shifts from using the relationship as a tool for insight and emotional repair in the moment, and makes it about some intangible "frisson" between T and client in which the T is the holder of the key. With some clients that will be experienced as frustrating or pointless, but with some it can result in growing insecurities and obsessions. Either way renders therapy useless or harmful. And those Ts never seem to see it until it blows up--and too often not then.

It's a mixed bag in my view. Clients have different needs.

I think it takes a very self-aware and mentally solid therapist to do psychodynamic therapy.

For some it can open Pandora's box, which can be jolting and disruptive of the client's life. So it can be wise to avoid this type of work with clients who are already experiencing hardship, such as unemployment, spousal abuse, health problems, etc.

It's ironic that a profession alleged to be a model for good mental health has such a basic identity problem. They can't even define what they do in realistic and coherent terms. They claim it's about using scientific methods to treat diseases of the mind, then also say it's about clinical "love" and attachment.

It's not enough to say the relationship is the therapy. Specifically they are suggesting that an artificial, payment-based, engineered, non-mutual relationship is the therapy.

For me this was not a vehicle for growth or healing. Was a dysfunctional relationship sold as a healthy one.

If it's not about the relationship, then I don't know what's left. Usually it ends up sounding like life coaching or religious conversion.

hope all goes well for you!

don't hesitate to send me an update via PM. i'm keen to hear how it goes for you and what you think.

Yeah, this part actually makes sense to me. It’s a really strange type of relationship. I just don’t know.

I'm fond of saying it's a convoluted relationship cuz that's how it feels to me. But overall it's been very healing for me as well. I'm just starting to feel the urge to get out of it again though, this happens on a pretty regular basis... urgh.