It is well known that as psychotherapists we want to continue to evolve into better therapists and it happens by understanding the client and his conscious and unconscious conflicts as well as paying attention to our own conflicts and experiences which may drive the therapy process.
In all the work we do the primary driving force continues to be an alliance, both the conscious therapeutic alliance as well as the more important unconscious therapeutic alliance. It has been found that if the patient and the therapist are not able to form an alliance in the first few sessions, the chances of the patient dropping out are much higher .
The practice of psychotherapy requires experience, intuition and also a skill set. The skill of the therapist is one important factor in determining outcomes in therapy. Research tells us that outcomes in therapy were consistently better when patients felt that their therapist was skilled. Along with specific therapist attributes of compassion and empathy, the skills of the
therapist played an extremely important role in positive outcomes in therapy. Skills can be acquired through training and regular supervision. Initially every technique seems hard to learn. It is quite like when we begin to learn to play a new sport. Initially it looks difficult, but as we learn to pay attention to the moves used by the opponent, as well as our own, we can acquire a box full of different interventions to achieve mastery.
When people come for therapy ,they have either symptoms like depression ,anxiety or relationship issues. Sometimes they are referred for multiple physical symptoms,like chronic pain,headache,irritable bowel ,gastritis which is linked to stress levels.
This dependence on another person(a therapist) for help arouses anxiety as depending on people in the past meant getting hurt. When the patient gets anxious ,he uses his regular coping strategies which he has learnt would help him survive or keep the relationship, These strategies helped him in the past because then the thought of losing a relationship with a caregiver on whom the patient depended on for survival was terrifying, but the same strategies in current relationships may cause his symptoms and problems.
Therefore any attempt to know the patient arouses feelings and anxiety and patterns of coping with anxiety.As feelings arise in the therapy ,so will anxiety and unconscious self defeating patterns . Together the patient and therapist can notice them and the patient can work towards more adaptive choices and work more closely with his feelings and wants to reach his real potential ,with least distress.
