What is Relational Therapy? How a Relational Approach Helps You Heal
What is Relational Therapy?
The connection you have to your therapist matters deeply beyond just a good fit. Research shows us time and time again that the most important factor in seeing growth in therapy is the strength of the client and therapist relationship. A relational therapy approach leans into this evidence by prioritizing building rapport at the start of therapy. This rapport will be the foundation for change.
Relational therapy is curious about relationships– and not just the kind between people. Frequently, when we think about relationships we think about romantic partners, friends and family members. While these relationships will be a focus of our work, relational therapy also takes into account the client’s relationships with other things in their life. Your relationship to substances, school, politics, your different identities, your anxiety or depression are all examples of the more non-traditional relationships we will look at in therapy together.
How Can Relational Therapy Help?
By framing your world in terms of relationships, we can understand the dynamic between you and the other in a more nuanced way. Looking at challenges relationally allows for compassion, deep understanding, and exploration. It also takes into account what the function of the relationship is which allows us to understand why a particular pattern is recurring for you and how to shift that pattern and adjust for any unmet need.
The final element of relational therapy that is unique and important is the therapeutic relationship. This is where the rapport that was built in the beginning stages of treatment comes in. In a relational approach to care, the therapist will use the relationship with the client to point out patterns as they occur in real time. The therapeutic relationship becomes an intervention itself in care.
What does Relational Therapy Look Like In Practice?
In practice, this may look like the therapist observing to you that a feeling you have with others shows up for them in the therapy space too. For instance– perhaps you and your therapist are talking about how you struggle to connect with others. Your therapist may say “have you ever felt trouble connecting with me, here in therapy?” This question opens the door to explore your relationship with connection in the moment. Now, not only can you talk about this struggle in the context of your outside relationship, you can talk about it directly as you experience it in the therapy space. Moments of exploration like this are powerful change makers as they allow the therapist to give you here and now feedback on how they are experiencing you as well as space for you to explore how you are experiencing the therapist, a real time experience often considered taboo in day-to-day life. This kind of feedback is transformational as it allows for insight and change to occur live in the room.
Relational therapy can be helpful for many different presenting problems including anxiety, depression, trauma, Complex PTSD, interpersonal concerns, identity questions, and grief. If you are curious to learn more about how relational therapy may be able to help you, I encourage you to reach out at my website contact form.