The Therapeutic Relationship as a Vehicle for Change

Instances of negative transference are not the only time or the only way in which the therapeutic relationship can become a vehicle for learning, growth, and change. Actually, devoting a portion of therapy time to the therapeutic relationship on a regular basis can really have a significant impact on therapy. It’s like performing maintenance on the therapeutic relationship – evaluating its condition, confirming mutual understanding of and agreement on goals and methods, analyzing interactions that come across wrong even when they don’t cause major disruptions or misunderstandings, and all the other small tasks that keep a relationship on track and running smoothly. Not only will this help the therapeutic relationship to stay healthy and strong, thereby preserving its viability as a continued part of healing, but these small maintenance tasks can also prove to be surprisingly revealing.

However, despite its potential benefits, focusing time on the therapeutic relationship rather than on “actual therapy” is not always looked on favorably by therapy clients.

Some people believe that the therapist should be solely responsible for maintaining the health and strength and viability of the therapeutic relationship, and that the client should not have to contribute anything to that particular effort. These people never discuss the therapeutic relationship because it’s just not their problem – and if a problem does develop in the relationship, it’s not their responsibility to fix it, so there’s still no need to talk about it except insofar as the therapist needs to be told what to do about it.

These same people are likely to find that their therapy is a thoroughly unsatisfying and ultimately futile endeavor. No healthy relationship can be entirely and exclusively focused on only one side of the dyad. All relationships are two-way streets, even the therapeutic relationship, and it takes some maintenance from both sides to keep it viable. Additionally, how we treat the therapeutic relationship is a microcosmic and intensified view of how we treat all our other relationships. If we are willing to neglect it, abuse it, take advantage of it, assume on it, or otherwise treat it poorly – that’s a pretty good indication of how we treat the other relationships in our lives as well.

Other people think that focusing on their relationship with the therapist is an unnecessary waste of time because they’re in therapy to address their depression or their test anxiety or something equally unlikely to benefit from focus on any kind of relationship. And it’s true that focusing time on the therapeutic relationship might not be necessary for these people – but doing so is never a waste, even if it does seem like a complete digression at first.

It has been a constant surprise to me in my studies and experiences, how even issues that seem to be entirely self-contained and unrelated to any kind of relationship dynamic can so often be traced back to a difficult past relationship or a hurtful experience at an impressionable moment. Even a relationship that was positive overall might contribute one small negative that lives on in the backs of our minds, unregarded and unrecognized, but still influencing our current-day lives.

And this is not relevant only to dissociative survivors, or even only to survivors in general – anyone might have a relationship or an interaction from which they took away a hurtful or self-defeating lesson.

We can live our entire lives with these background influences and never realize that they’re coming from anything more than “just how we are.” The original precipitant can be so small, so distant, so seemingly insignificant to our current-day selves, that we might hardly even remember that it happened at all, and we never consider its potential strength.

But the lingering effects of these old lessons will still be apparent in how we act and react within the therapeutic relationship.

These effects are more subtle than the big transference issues, so they are easier to overlook, especially if nobody’s looking for them. However, if they are recognized for what they are, they can lead to some surprising realizations and some very positive changes.

This is why devoting regular time to the maintenance of the therapeutic relationship is important, and it is another way that the therapeutic relationship itself can be beneficial to us as clients.

If we spend time on the therapeutic relationship only when there are problems, then the problem at hand is always the focus, and we miss the smaller and more subtle influences that might be affecting us even when there are no big problems to resolve.

Spending a regular portion of therapy time on the therapeutic relationship, even in the absence of specific problems, gives our therapist and ourselves the chance to recognize and draw out these quieter factors that influence our relationships and our interpersonal skills, so that we can analyze and learn from them.

Therapy at its best and most effective has far greater potential than just being a place we go to dump our weekly troubles so we can move on. Therapy is a dynamic process, a product of the relationship between us and our therapist. The therapeutic relationship is a mirror and a magnifying glass for all of our real-world relationships. It is also the one relationship where, if we are willing, we can safely experiment with new and more effective ways of being in the world. It is a relationship in which all our expectations and projections and beliefs come to life, for good or bad – but it is also a relationship where we can examine these things as they are, develop new perspectives on old lessons, and gain mastery over them rather than allowing them to continue having mastery over us.