Relationship Between Therapist and Client

written by: Kosjenka Muk

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The Road to Hell is Paved With...

As a person, family or country becomes less focused on mere physical survival, the awareness of the importance of emotional health, relationships and spirituality becomes stronger. Ever more people are looking for help and guidance in this context. In time, many people wish to change from the client's to the helper's role. However, not even in the framework of formal, university education enough attention is dedicated to the relationship between the helper and the client, apart from some general guidelines. Such knowledge is insufficient especially in the area of alternative helping methods. So it happens sometimes that the helper, even when he acts with the best purpose in mind, harms the client more than he helps him.

As a guideline for all the people who consider helping others in the future, as well as for those who already work as therapists/coaches or plan to do it, I wish to draw your attention to the complexity and impact of the client-therapist relationship and the importance of approaching it responsibly.

In the world of alternative helping methods, some people call themselves therapists without any training or after short training in a narrow area, which might be based on dogma and theories rather than on the openness of mind, experience and thinking. Knowledge without inspiration and good intentions won't bring much good, but lack of education and knowledge will cause people to make huge mistakes.

Regardless of the therapist's best intentions, the success of her work will primarily depend on her emotional maturity and responsibility. This means that the therapist has to heal himself and his life: resolve disturbing emotions, build fulfilling relationships and create life which fulfills his emotional needs. If a therapist's needs are not fulfilled or if they are still immature ("false" needs compensating for the healthy ones, e.g. the need for power can be felt instead of healthy need for love, which the person feels can't be fulfilled) there is a big risk that he may attempt to satisfy them through his relationship with the clients.

The risk is increased by the fact that often a therapist can fulfill such needs much more easily in the relationship therapist-client than in other relationships. The foundation of this relationship is that the therapist is in the position of authority, and the client trusts him sufficiently to accept him as authority. In such a relationship it is much easier to influence and manipulate the other person than in everyday relationships between people who perceive each other as equal in knowledge and abilities.

 

A Dance of Subconscious

Sometimes people choose the career as therapists because it gives them authority, power and status in the eyes of others. Such people will feel a need to convince themselves that they are more capable than other people and that they have the right to influence them. This attitude doesn't necessarily have to be obvious to the others.

Sometimes the therapist's wish to make the world a better place will result in attempts to change others without allowing them to advance at their own pace. This is often a result of an unconscious need to get rid of her own childish feelings. Just as in love relationships we often choose partners who are in some ways similar to our parents, to fulfill the unconscious wish to change or save our parents, in the therapist's role we can project this saviour's attitude to the rest of humanity. Subconsciously, we might hope to make a difference, deserve love or approval, make things easier for ourselves just as we hoped to do in our early family. If other people do not advance at the speed and in the direction we wish, this can provoke childish anger and criticism. An example of similar behaviour are animal rights or environmental issues activists, who sometimes try to change other people by violent methods seeing them as evil, instead of as people conditioned by their education and insufficiently informed. Such people often identify themselves with what they are trying to protect, while projecting anger toward those who they see as "victimizers". This anger has its origin in their relationship with their parents or other authorities. Even if the motivation for their actions is positive, if they act on their childish feelings they are neither able to see the others' perspective, or to understand that their violent behaviour will naturally trigger a defense reaction instead of agreement.

A smaller but not insignificant number of therapists believe consciously that they have the right to exercise power over other people. Such persons usually create rather rigid, hierarchical organisations around them with elements of personality cults, and they openly take a dominant attitude towards their clients, requesting things from them and prohibiting things to them, which doesn't help the client improve his life, but helps maintain the power structure. Such requests can be explained by different moralistic ideas, but it is important that they are not logically and naturally connected to the solution of the client's problems. For example, requests to adhere to certain ritual procedures and formalities, not to explore different approaches and not to question the therapist's dogmas.

Modalities of exercising such influence can be different: from subtle group pressure and non-verbal disapproval to direct punishment or intimidation. The common result is that the client is slowly lead into an unequal position while feelings of impotence, dependence, fear, guilt or inferiority are created within him, instead of him feeling worthy and able to steer his life and create happiness on his own.

To achieve this, the client must have complementary emotional issues: lack of self-confidence and self-trust, a feeling that it's natural not to be treated as equal and respected, and that his opinion and inner guidance is not taken into consideration. Since some people grew up in exactly such an atmosphere, it is not difficult to induce them to accept it once again. Actually, what many people are looking for in a therapist or coach is authority and decision-making: a substitute for parents. This is why some clients show less trust to those therapists who treat them as their equals and as capable people, than those who want to dominate.

 

Favourite Illusions

All of us believe to be right and like to be right. A coach or therapist is no exception. However, just like anybody else, a therapist is limited by her experience and her beliefs. One of the key mistakes of many approaches is the assumption that the therapist knows the answers, while the client knows little or nothing about her problem. Answers are more frequently sought in the rational knowledge or emotional (intuitive) impressions of the therapist, than in the client's inner resources and subconscious.

Not only is it impossible to analyse thoroughly all, or even majority, of known ideas and therapeutic approaches, but due to other life obligations, often we have little time to immerse ourselves deeply even into a relatively narrow scope of interests. Everybody enjoys certain segments of knowledge, while those that are emotionally less attractive usually appear far less important. Consequently, every therapist will look for the answers in his area of expertise, and he might not want, or not be able to, think of the entire spectrum of different possibilities.

This is natural and almost unavoidable, but it can become dangerous in case of suggestive approaches, or in case of therapists who are prone to exert their influence and authority over others. Sometimes a therapist who is an expert in a particular issue, or who may be excited about some recent findings or ideas, leads the client into believing that he has that very problem. "If the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems look like a nail."

When it comes to the client, she comes for help, very often due to grave problems, and it is pleasant to believe that somebody can give her solutions. The client can long for somebody to take over a part of the burden of decision making, or to offer her new, interesting belief structures which give hope for an "instant", effortless solution. The client might long for somebody to whom she can surrender her life and whom she can idealise, just like parents. The most difficult life problems naturally provoke childish feelings, so a person who is seen as an authority at that moment can easily become a parent substitute to the client.

Thus the client can go through a similar process as small children who wish to trust their parents in order to feel safe: he can be positively surprised and idealise everything that the therapist guesses correctly or does well. Based on this, he starts to trust that the therapist always knows what he does. If the therapist at this point says something wrong, abstract or difficult to prove, the client often starts to search for justifications for such ideas, something like: "Well, maybe it could be true? I never thought about it before!" If there is some truth in the therapist's assumptions, even if it is not the full truth or an important part of it, the client will focus on it and he can feel that the therapist recognises his problems better than himself. For example, if the therapist says that the problem lies in the fact that the client did not forgive somebody - and who of us does not bear any grudge against important people? - the client can be impressed by the insight that some anger is still within him, but overlook the fact that this might not be the core problem.

 

Sexuality and Therapy

The fact is that, if something attracts us physically or emotionally, the mind can think of numerous reasons, regardless how far-fetched, to justify acting on it. This is also no exception in various aspects of the therapist-client relationship, and in some cases it can become dangerous.

One of such cases is sexual intimacy between the therapist and the client. Male therapists in particular can feel sexual attraction towards their female clients, while women as clients, more often than men, can feel emotional attraction to the therapist as a subconscious substitute for the father or some other important figure. This is when various justifications start to be created.

One of the most common justifications is that there is nothing negative in sexuality, that one should not be ashamed of it and sometimes even that the sexual act itself has therapeutic properties. A good example I heard of is a man who is a massage therapist, who believes that a sexual intercourse helps to "release energy" and that there is nothing wrong with sexual intercourse during a massage, if the client wishes and asks for it.
Apart from completely neglecting the emotional aspects of sexuality, this shows an ignorance of deeper, more sensitive aspects of a relationship between the therapist and the client, especially of the transference mechanism and childish feelings in general.

One of the things that define a good therapist, is understanding and respect for the client's vulnerable position, more vulnerable than in almost any other relationship in his everyday life. The client is not only emotionally open within the therapeutic situation, but this openness can often provoke some otherwise suppressed feelings, needs and longings that can be easily projected to the therapist as a perceived source of support and authority (and both are parents' features).

Client or Child?

Within some methods, the therapist is encouraged to play a parent substitute to the client. Such methods presume that this will help the client to become aware of and release unresolved feelings towards parents. What makes such an approach questionable is the fact that, most often, becoming aware and expressing feelings is not enough to permanently resolve them. Many people have read books that have helped them become aware of what they feel and why, many people learn to express their emotions - yet it's often not enough to achieve true relief and freedom. In our opinion, external action and conscious understanding helps a little, but is usually not enough to reach the subconscious.

In some respect, almost every infatuation is a search for substitute parents. If a relationship or external experiences could resolve childish feelings, many people would be able to resolve them relatively easily on their own. However, these relationships are only a substitute, they are not what the "inner child" is really looking for, and our subconscious knows that. That's why many people, even when they have a very supporting and loving partner, won't find relief within the intimate relationship and will probably continue with their immature reactions. Besides, focused and deep work on recovering split personality parts and resolving deep emotional beliefs is often missing in the therapeutic approach based on transference.

A therapist is a person with all human issues. The emotions that a client expresses, as well as his behaviour, can trigger the therapist's conditioned reactions, i.e. unresolved emotions. Just as the client can subconsciously see his parent or another important figure in the therapist, the same association and recollection process is spontaneously and unavoidably taking place in the therapist as well. If she doesn't observe herself and her feelings carefully, maybe she won't notice conditioned prejudices or attractions awakening within her.

It is possible that the therapist unconsciously begins to see the client not only as a person from his past, but as a child, or he can see his own unresolved problems in the client's. It's a great temptation for the therapist not to impose himself as an authority in the client's life, or to believe that he knows better than the client what the problem is and how to solve it. Such therapist can even feel offended or belittle the client if his advice is not accepted. Some clients welcome advice and instructions - someone who will take over the responsibility for their lives and tell them what to do - but then, instead of listening to their own inner truth, they start listening to a person who actually knows little about them and their lives.

 

Intuition or Ego-trip?

Many therapists like to think that they know much more than they do. Especially in the area of intuitive diagnostics as well as predictions for future (an area most prone to abuse), rare helper will consider the possibility of his mistake, or even make an effort to carefully choose his words. I remember several encounters when I was given, often unsolicited, diagnoses of my physical health, and each of them was completely different. None of them corresponded to my own feeling and experience. The majority of those "diagnoses" were made very fast, expressed by strong words, without paying real attention. As a rule, these guesses were made on the basis of very uncertain physical indicators such as pulse or aching body parts during a massage. Sometimes they were even based on one single glance. In most of these cases, I felt that those people were trying to achieve a sense of power, trying to make an impression that they know things about others that others either didn't know, or didn't want to be known.

Even if such predictions are the least reliable of all, still the clients sometimes trust them most. It seems that, the fewer the proofs that a person can submit, the more the client feels free to believe that the other possesses some special power. We all need a little bit of magic in our lives, but not if this magic harms us.

I've met quite a few people who have been told by some negligent astrologists or fortune-tellers things like: "You can't be helped" or "You'll never find a partner", leaving the people in the state of fear and shock and bereaved of hope. Having spoken with some people about this, I found out that one thing was common in almost all the cases: the client received quite a good intuitive analysis of her past and present, which would invoke trust. However, the predictions for future turned out to be of very poor quality or completely wrong.

Apart from the future not being determined, or at least not definitely, each person who makes such forecasts gives to his impressions the stamp of her own personality and experience. Since they very often neglect the importance of working with their own emotions, their predictions will be coloured with their own view of the world and their unresolved emotions. If you are looking for a person who could tell you something about your future, chose the one who seems happy, balanced and who has a positive attitude towards life.

 

Resistance and Responsibility

Many methods do not pay enough attention to resolving emotions, choosing rather to avoid, control or manipulate them. Often the client is told to "simply forgive" or in a similar way to "get rid" of his emotions very fast, maybe by their symbolical burning, sending to the universe or through discipline and will power. As the message and the lesson from these emotions are not received, the important relationships are left unresolved and the split personality parts are not found and integrated, this cannot yield long lasting results. The client very often attempts to believe that he has solved his problem, trying to suppress and neglect these parts of himself even more. If he finally admits that the problem is still there, the therapist often calls it "resistance".

A "resisting client" - although sometimes it does happen - can be a common therapist's excuse to avoid being questioned on the efficiency of his method or his behaviour. Especially therapists who tend to moralise or belittle specific emotions, can provoke a feeling of not being understood and accepted in the client, or maybe an unconscious discomfort and confusion as he feels that something is lacking. In such situations therapists are often too fast in labelling such feelings as resistance.

True resistance is at most times unconscious and subtle. It is often an attempt to protect oneself from pain and mitigate the speed and intensity of a change, if the change could threaten the emotional balance or important relationships (if the client feels that her family or friends could react negatively to her changing). Resistance is often shown through feelings or behaviour modes that hide some other feelings that are difficult to accept (e.g. anger instead of guilt or shame, rationalisation, blaming and similar). The therapist can have a subtle impression that the client does not express everything he feels. Often the client's nonverbal communication is incongruent. In such situations it's important that the therapist can be clear within her own mind and able to separate her own unpleasant emotions from what she feels is going on within the client.

I often hear about alternative therapists who are so unaware and unprepared to take responsibility that they, not just during the therapy but also during any other everyday activity, attribute all or most of their unpleasant feelings to the "negative energy" that they took over from clients during sessions. Moreover, they might teach such an approach to their students. The therapist presents herself as an especially advanced person, and she talks about her "taking over" of client's problems as a proof of her compassion. The stories about "the client's negative energy sticking" onto the therapist are a little bit of a bogey for new students. Therapists love to make self-display by using such stories to show their strength and righteousness, and partly also to play a victim's role. Then they make a show of energetic cleaning of themselves and the room, of the stories about taking on their clients' symptoms and emotions, about clients as "energy vampires" and the like. 

I think such stories are blown way out of proportion. Therapists - through such stories - deny their own power and free will to avoid taking responsibility for their feelings. According to my experience, the only thing that the therapist can "take over" from the client is emerging of the feelings that he already has inside. The less healthy the therapist, the more he suppresses and denies his split parts, the more likely it is that the client' unpleasant emotions will trigger his own. The more balanced, integrated and healty the therapist is, the less it is possible for him to feel threatened by anything coming from the client.

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