Helping Relationship

We are all unique individuals. We have our own past experiences, expectations, anxieties, fears, hopes and dreams. Therefore, every single relationship between two people is unique. I have never met anyone like the client who is sitting in front of me, and I never will. Similarly, they have never met anyone like me before, and they never will. The helping relationship that is forming between us is unique. It all depends on the quality of this relationship.

Any encounter can be therapeutic. You don’t need to be a trained therapist to help people in distress. Very often, a shop assistant, a hairdresser, a cleaner, or even some random person sitting next to you in a waiting room, is able to provide the support that you need: listening, empathy and acceptance. Those who are able to recognise when someone needs to talk, and can respond appropriately, are likely to give invaluable help and support at any given time, in any random environment, in any kind of circumstances. We mustn’t make any assumptions; we just need to listen and occasionally to enquire gently and tentatively.

When a client comes to me asking for help, we start to form a working alliance. First of all, we need to trust each other. Then we need to agree what our goals with this helping relationship are: what is that the client wants to achieve through these sessions, and what is that I am able to offer them. Then, we decide about the way to go towards the agreed goal.

We have to start with the client’s present situation. I have to learn to see and understand their situation from their own perspective. I need to respect the client’s autonomy. I need to trust them that they themselves have the resources necessary for the change they desire. The client is in charge. They are the one who needs to find the solution, and I have to trust that they will. I am merely a companion on their journey toward fulfilling their own potential. We are both imperfect, fallible human beings with our own peculiarities. We need to form a working alliance that is conductive to growth and change.

We all struggle. We all hurt. These are exactly those experiences that help us form helping relationships. In order to do this, we first have to know and accept ourselves.

I am not the expert here. The client is the expert of their own life. They know what hurts them; they themselves need to discover their own way forward. I am there to accompany them with empathy, respect, unconditional positive regard by being congruent with them: a genuine, real person. I merely need to support the client to access their own wisdom and to recover their self-direction. I will not be directive, coercive or controlling; I will not be forcing them.

Basically, the therapy itself is the development of the helping relationship between the two of us. We should both be committed to moving forward towards better mental health and reaching our full potential.

The helping relationship is usually a relatively short-term one: less than a year, most of the time.

I understand the client’s need for external authority. It does sound easy that someone more clever than you tells you exactly what to do and you can simply follow their advice to get where you want to. This is definitely not the case in a helping relationship. I am exactly the same fallible, imperfect human being as the client themselves. I am no more expert than them,;definitely not an expert in their life. My expertise as a helper for decades for many different people, enables me to be a good enough companion on the journey that must be taken by the client themselves. They need to find their own way. I am there for them, to encourage them, to remind them of what they have decided, and to make sure that they can feel safe and supported on their journey.

Often the client rejects themselves. Self-rejection undermines everything that they try to do or try to be. They feel worthless and being doomed to disapproval by others and rejection from them. When self-rejection is internalised, the person keeps reinforcing it with their behaviour, therefore, they lessen their chances even more to win approval or esteem from others.

According to Carl Rogers, the father of the person-centred approach in psychology, a fully functioning person is in touch with their deepest feelings and experiences. They are able to make their own decisions without relying on an external authority for guidance. They do not want or attempt desperately to please everyone – which would be impossible anyway. The fully functioning person is aware of their present thoughts and feelings, and able to articulate them. They themselves are their own source of wisdom, their own reference point, that they are able to access.

Human beings are social animals. We are relational creatures. Responses that we get from significant others deeply affect us, just like societal and cultural norms of our milieu. If we received the necessary reinforcement in our early years from a loving, supporting environment, we are affirmed that we can trust our own thoughts and feelings, that we are able to make decisions by ourselves, according to our own perceptions and desires. If we have not received this necessary reinforcement in our early years, we never gain or lose trust in ourselves. We condemn ourselves, we feel guilty and we might have an overwhelming need for positive regard, that undermines our self-confidence and makes independent decision making practically impossible for us. Therefore we are unable to strive towards growth, and we cannot fulfil our potential.

Being the helper, I need to create the conditions for growth for my client. First of all, by trusting them that they are able to grow towards their own unique identity, even when they do not trust themselves to do so. I need to make them see that their self-concept is alterable, and they are capable of modifying and transforming their attitudes and behaviours. In order to be able to do this, I have to be a real, genuine, congruent person in our helping relationship, who accepts the client non-judgementally for whom they are, so they can feel safe enough to explore their negative feelings without fearing rejection or condemnation. I need to be able to communicate the client my empathic understanding. I have to be me, without a professional facade, in order to convey the message to the client that it is not only permitted but desirable for them to be themselves. This is how they will be able to find the resources necessary for the change they need, in themselves.