The Importance of the Therapeutic Relationship
In medical practice the therapeutic relationship has died. It is no longer considered necessary in a scientific era where technology supersedes patient contact and protocols rule. Instead the therapeutic relationship is pushed into the psychological arena; although, even there, a cognitive and behavioural dominance backed by assessment processes has marginalised it.
Maybe it is present in the complementary and alternative fields? Maybe more; although the desire to be included in the institutional fold belies the connection of these fields to traditions where it was important, even central. But maybe this trend is correct and it is not so important in the modern era; after all, it can get in the way with all that emotional stuff and potential sexual undercurrents…
Yet there is an increasing dissatisfaction with modern healthcare. People are more fearful of health concerns; we are the “worried well”. The fear of death itself, beyond pain, suffering and infirmity, hangs like a pall in a soulless era of scientific rationalism. And it is the soul that needs nurturing; and in the field of healthcare delivery, maybe it is intimacy that our patients, clients and friends want and require?
“Emotion is the vehicle of the soul,” said Paracelsus, the sixteenth century alchemist erroneously considered the founder of modern pharmacy. Ultimately, it is this disconnection that most ill, diseased or suffering are experiencing… even if they don’t know it.
Yet it is the practitioner or therapist’s role to re-establish this connection as a basis of healing. Otherwise any attempt to alleviate suffering is merely fixing and the complaint doomed to return; maybe in another guise, or an even more severe. This relationship stands behind and under any attempt at a real cure or healing.
Our clients’ yearn for it, but do we fear it as therapists? Is the fear that we might get too close and lose our prized objectivity, misguided though this may attitude may be. Is the threat of intimacy, particularly sexual, one we must protect ourselves from? Or is it the basis of the true connection, wherein true healing occurs?
