The Client-Therapist Relationship within the Systems Frame: Reconciling the Differences

Abstract

The Postmodern Paradigm granted family therapists global permission to accept the all-important “collaborative” therapeutic relationship in which both client and therapist are mutually involved in a journey of self discovery in which primary emphasis is placed upon understanding the client’s experiences. This paper examines the importance of reconciling the therapeutic relationship and the techniques, which originate from systemic models of family therapy directing “fixed” interventions. The benefits of other psychoanalytical approaches such as existential and person-centered therapy will also be considered as a necessary and logical consequence of postmodern thinking as well as a critical shift in clinical training. The positive effects of such training in the healing of abuse, violence and trauma on different levels of family experiences will be explored through research and case studies. The integration of purely systemic thinking, psychoanalytical approaches and the postmodern narrative frame is significant in that it has the potential to help clinicians to adapt more easily to the “non-fixed,” diversified world environment in order to cocreate new solutions and strategies with their clients for our ever-changing and often times damaging global circumstances.