The special relationship between the client
and the therapist is known as the
therapeutic relationship or alliance.
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It is
neither a passing acquaintance, nor a
permanent and lasting relationship. There
are two major components of a therapeutic
alliance. The first component is the
contractual nature of the relationship in
which two willing individuals, the client
and the therapist, enter into a partnership
which aims at helping the client overcome
her/his problems. The second component
of therapeutic alliance is the limited
duration of the therapy. This alliance lasts
until the client becomes able to deal with
her/his problems and take control of her/
his life. This relationship has several
unique properties. It is a trusting and
confiding relationship.
The high level of
trust enables the client to unburden
herself/himself to the therapist and confide
her/his psychological and personal
problems to the latter. The therapist
encourages this by being accepting,
empathic, genuine and warm to the client.
The therapist conveys by her/his words
and behaviours that s/he is not judging
the client and will continue to show the
same positive feelings towards the client
even if the client is rude or confides all the
�wrong� things that s/he may have done or
thought about. This is the unconditional
positive regard which the therapist has for
the client. The therapist has empathy for
the client.
Empathy is different from
sympathy and intellectual understanding
of another person�s situation. In sympathy,
one has compassion and pity towards the
suffering of another but is not able to feel
like the other person. Intellectual
understanding is cold in the sense that the
person is unable to feel like the other
person and does not feel sympathy either.
On the other hand, empathy is present
when one is able to understand the plight
of another person, and feel like the other
person. It means understanding things
from the other person�s perspective, i.e.
putting oneself in the other person�s shoes.
Empathy enriches the therapeutic
relationship and transforms it into a
healing relationship.
The therapeutic alliance also requires
that the therapist must keep strict
confidentiality of the experiences, events,
feelings or thoughts disclosed by the client.
The therapist must not exploit the trust
and the confidence of the client in anyway.
Finally, it is a professional relationship,
and must remain so.
TYPE OF THERAPIES
Though all psychotherapies aim at
removing human distress and fostering
effective behaviour, they differ greatly in
concepts, methods, and techniques.
Psychotherapies may be classified into
three broad groups, viz. the
psychodynamic, behaviour, and existential
psychotherapies. In terms of the
chronological order, psychodynamic
therapy emerged first followed by
behaviour therapy while the existential
therapies which are also called the third
force, emerged last. The classification of
psychotherapies is based on the following
parameters:
1. What is the cause, which has led to the
problem?
Psychodynamic therapy is of the view
that intrapsychic conflicts, i.e. the
conflicts that are present within the
psyche of the person, are the source of
psychological problems. According to
behaviour therapies, psychological
problems arise due to faulty learning of
behaviours and cognitions. The
existential therapies postulate that the
questions about the meaning of one�s
life and existence are the cause of
psychological problems.
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AKHAND PRATAP SINGH
