Psychotherapy Technique and Approach
Core Principles of Somatic Psychotherapy
Somatic Psychology is the study of the interactions among brain, mind, body, and behavior and how these relationships directly impact psychological and physical health. As a somatic therapist, I help my clients to develop body awareness skills through the gentle guidance of tracking sensations, emotions, breath, and movement impulses in the present moment. This practice cultivates embodied self-awareness and interoception which allows a person to feel connected to oneself in a meaningful way.
Core Principles of Relational Psychotherapy
Relational psychotherapy is founded on the concept of relationships with others being an essential aspect of emotional well-being. Individuals who find it difficult to maintain supportive and healthy relationships may experience a sense of disconnection in addition to feelings of diminished self-worth and general distress, and their sense of emotional well-being may negatively affected.
The practice of relational psychotherapy adheres to the following principles:
It is important for a person to maintain fulfilling and satisfying relationships with those around them in order to maintain emotional health.
Stress and emotional upheaval are often the result of past relational experiences, and these concerns may inhibit the present self from full expression.
The therapist administering relational psychotherapy provides an atmosphere of empathy and attentiveness in order to elicit full disclosure of the experiences and events affecting the person seeking treatment.
The therapist and the person in therapy work together to forge a strong, collaborative, and secure relationship that can serve as a model for future relationships the person wishes to develop.
How Does Relational Psychotherapy Work?
In general, relational psychotherapy sessions emphasize the development of relational awareness. To achieve this, the therapist and the person in therapy must typically gain an understanding of the individual's strategies for connection, disconnection or the styles of interpersonal interaction that are used to push others away. Once they are identified, the therapist and individual can explore the potential reasons behind the use of these strategies. Transformation begins to occur when the therapist and individual build new relational images using the therapist-person in therapy relationship as a model for a secure and healthy relationship.
The primary goal of relational psychotherapy is to help those seeking help better understand how they operate in relation to others and how their relating patters can have an impact on mental and emotional well-being. Therapists can also help individuals better understand and take into consideration the effects of differences in power or equality as well as the impact of social issues such as class, race, gender, and culture.
Relational Practice
Psychoanalysis has always recognized that past events, especially early developmental experiences, repeat themselves in the present. Therefore, relational analysts continue to attend to early attachment, developmental history, defensive structures, projections, transference and countertransference, asking themselves: “How has this person been shaped?” “What happened?” “What have they done with what happened?” Relational analysts, however, have expanded the emphasis on early parent–child relations, in particular the mother, to include other significant interpersonal relations as well as the influence of one’s own culture and traumas that have shaped and formed a person’s view of self. Perhaps an even greater shift in relational theory is the attention to the “here and now” co-created between the patient and the analyst. In attending to this progression in analytic theory, analysts now consider such questions as: “What is being stirred in me?” “Why am I reacting in this way?” “How am I impacting this patient?” “Am I allowing myself to be fully immersed, with all my thoughts, all my feelings?” “What am I contributing within this relational milieu?”
From this perspective, the relational analyst has modified the rationalistic interpretations of the Freudian era: from enlightening the patient about his life to helping him capture the nature of his emotional life in intimate detail . . . [furthermore] the emphasis [has] moved from understanding and explaining of connections to concern with the present and an interest in immediate awareness of emotions. (Singer, 1994, p. 195) The analyst’s current view is that working in the here and now not only offers insight to there and then, but is also an opportunity for a new relational experience. Thus the analyst engages the patient in direct relationship with him/herself, believing effective change comes from working through that which is co-created within the analytic dyad. Historically, we have referred to the relational dynamic of there and then and here and now as transference and countertransference.
Reference: Core Competencies of Relational Psychoanalysis by Roy E. Barsness