Therapeutic relationship

The value of a therapeutic relationship

Good friends are precious but you don’t always want to tell them everything.

Often there are things we would like to speak about but feel put off by our personal relationships. This is why, in times of trouble or concern a therapeutic relationship is valuable.

A therapeutic relationship is confidential

Your psychotherapist will not know your friends, and you won’t bump into them at your friends house.  A therapeutic relationship is confidential.

It may be better for your friendships too if you don’t feel you’ve told your friends too much.  Better sometimes to be able to get something off your mind and leave it there, rather than worry about whether your friend will bring it up when you don’t want them too.

How a therapeutic relationship can help

It is remarkable how a confidential psychotherapy or counselling conversation helps to open up questions and worries that you may have kept to yourself for years.

Sometimes, in just a few sessions you see someone open up about themselves in a way that they apparently have not done before, or not in a very long time.

As they talk about themselves and subjects they have up to now worried about and kept concealed, they start to change.  It is physical. You can see the relief.

Psychotherapy and counselling and symptom relief

Relieved of troubles that you felt it was never safe to speak about, you may start to breathe more deeply and easily, you may find yourself becoming more relaxed.  When this happens, physical symptoms such as:

• Headaches
• all kinds of physical pains
• IBS and other bowel and stomach problems start to improve.

Psychological and physical issues that have been bothering people for ages, and which have sometimes lead to problematic medical diagnoses start to dissolve as the therapeutic relationship and the counselling sessions develop.

People report that they are:

• sleeping better, that
• bad dreams and nightmares have stopped
• they start to find a new perspective on themselves and their lives, and
• they have a new energy for projects and ideas.

And all of this happens as the therapeutic relationship develops. It is rewarding and remarkable to be part of work that improves the quality of someone’s life.

Often the reasons that drive us to seek psychotherapy and a therapeutic relationship are complicated.

Why you need a good Psychotherapist

The problems that seem to repeatedly effect our lives and our relationships and our work are not simple. If it was simple we would have dealt with them long ago.

Psychotherapy and counselling can be very demanding work and you should select a therapist who is:

• highly trained
• experienced
• ethical
• committed to ongoing professional development

Psychotherapy is my vocation. I am not someone who thought they should become a counsellor because their friends said they were good with people.  My relationship with my work is much deeper than that.

I am trained to a very high standard and very experienced which means:

• I know how I work,
• you are getting a very professional psychotherapist,  not a hobbyist who took up counselling to give them something to do in their retirement

How does a therapeutic relationship begin?

The challenge can be how to find a way to get into the work of psychotherapy and counselling when often people tend to follow patterns of falling out of things like relationships or jobs.

How do you stick with something that might be good for you and not repeat the well worn pattern of giving up and withdrawing?

Each time you withdraw you become more stuck in the experience of not finding a way out of the problem.  A good psychotherapist will help you develop insight into the ways that you tend to lose confidence and give up on things that might be good for you.

Contact Counselling Buckinghamshire to arrange a time to meet.

Working in a therapeutic relationship with me

My experience is in helping people find a way to engage with their problems.

I work to help people change the things they want to change.  Contact me for a free telephone consultation to discuss how counselling Buckinghamshire can help you.