Relational psychotherapy is client-centered psychodynamic talk therapy. As a client, you have the choice of what you want to talk about and the general direction of your therapy. Through the interaction between client and therapist, it is possible to develop a greater awareness of both the unconscious and conscious forces that shape our personality and contribute to our overall mental health and well-being.
We are not built to live an isolated or separate existence. Early on, we seek connection with our primary caregivers for our very survival, and we continue to pursue connections throughout our lives because they are essential to our psychological and emotional well-being. Our need for connection requires us to interact and ultimately to relate to one another. It is in how we relate to others that we are able to know ourselves. In other words, the experience we have of ourselves is always an experience of how we are with others. It follows that if we can only know ourselves in relation to another, then the experience we have of ourselves is directly related to the quality of the interactions and relationships we have with others.
In therapy, we have an opportunity to discover more about the conscious and unconscious ways in which we “choose” to interact with others. Working relationally with a therapist provides a safe and empathic space from which to explore our relational patterns. The therapeutic alliance between therapist and client is also a unique context for developing new ways of relating in your everyday life.
Changing how we feel and experience ourselves is possible because we are able to alter the ways in which we relate to another.