What is Relational Therapy?
You might’ve heard many therapists say they work “relationally” and in the “here-and-now”. I must admit: it sounded odd to me at first, but I’ve come to see its powers.
During my sessions, naturally, my clients talk about other people. But they are recounting what had already happened. They are describing a relationship that isn’t alive and present in the room.
No matter how detailed your descriptions, no matter how many questions I ask, we will only be talking about relationships. I will not get an actual sense of what it’s like to actually be in the relationship you’re describing; we will not be engaged in the actual moment-to-moment relating.
In truth, there is only so much I, as a therapist, can know what it’s really like for you to be in the various relationships you’re in, be it familial, romantic, friend, or professional.
The most accurate and direct experience I can have of your relational patterns is through my relationship with you. Your relational patterns will show up in our 50 minutes together, alive and present, in our therapeutic relationship. That’s where the real work is done.
How Relational Therapy Works in Sessions
So how would the work go? Let me give you a real example.
Due to a bad romantic relationship, a client of mine began to feel unlovable. They developed trust issues with people, and became very skeptical about other people’s words, especially compliments. My client was also an intellectualizer who avoided emotions. They wanted to work on their relationships and their lack of feeling.
As a therapist, depending on your chosen modality and interests, they might guide their sessions in different ways.
Those who are more psychoanalytical might ask more questions about the client’s past experiences with untrustworthy people and feelings of unlovable-ness.
Someone who is more CBT-oriented might challenge the client’s perceptions and point out certain cognitive distortion they might be engaging in.
For me, as someone who is trained in Existential Humanistic Therapy, I tend to attune to how both the client and I feel about each other in the immediate moment, that is, the therapeutic relationship in the here-and-now.
This client tended to talk about other people, other things, and how they felt in the past, not what they feel in the moment.
There is a sense of detachment from them, like they were physically in the room but I don’t feel like they’re there with me. They were reporting to me, not relating with me.
After gathering sufficient history and building rapport for a few sessions, in one particular session, while they were sharing again their distrust of people, I decided to directly address our therapeutic relationship: I asked my client whether they trusted me, whether all the times I affirmed them they did not believe what I said.
They shared candidly that they took everything I said with a grain of salt, especially because this is a professional relationship and it’s likely that I only said what I said because I’m paid to do so.
I asked whether they would like to know how I felt about what they said, and whether I meant my affirmations. They responded that they preferred not to know because they might overthink, but I could share if I wanted to.
While my client’s family, friends, and colleague might’ve sensed my client’s distrust towards and inauthenticity with them, I don’t think many of them would “confront” my client in the way that I did. I broke the performance.
Notice how my client wasn’t just talking abstractly about their relational patterns any more. They were actually living it out in the moment with me and addressing it head on. I disrupted their intellectualizing, and they had to face their emotions in the moment.
They were given an opportunity to break their own performance and in doing so, attempt a different response—one that is hopefully more authentic—instead of their typical, well-rehearsed performative lines.
It is in constantly practicing different responses while actually living your relational patterns that actual change occurs. Change doesn’t come simply because you’re abstractly aware.
I thought, if I went along with my client, nothing would change. Our time together might give them the space to vent and analyze, but they would likely fail to actualize the long-term change they sought. My judgment was that something more authentic, present, and alive might be what we need.
The key point is that I’m not focusing on the relationship for its own sake. Of course, having a strong therapeutic relationship is good. But there’s a lot more going on here that would be very helpful to bring to light. In particular, what narratives underlie my client’s relational patterns.
How Your Brain Makes Sense of the World
As human beings, we necessarily live by narratives. That’s how we make sense of reality. Narratives like “what is success”, “what is normal”, “what does it mean to be a son/daughter”, “how I should live”. Depending on your cultural environment, you learn to live by different narratives.
Aside from those, we live by 3 very important narratives: “who am I”, “who others are”, and “what is the world like”. In more technical terms, you can call these the self-construct, other-construct, and world-construct.
We live life with these narratives and constructs in the background, informing how we think and feel, and how we interact with other people.
Notably, while you have your own set of constructs, you are also a part of other people’s constructs as well. What I mean is, even though you’re a “self” to yourself, you’re also an “other” to somebody.
Let’s break these concepts down more carefully.
What is Self-Construct?
A self-construct is the story you tell yourself about who you are. This story could be rigid and static, or it could be flexible and fluid. Your self-construct could also come not only from how you see yourself, but how you believe others see you, and how others actually see you.
You might have a rigid self-construct of “I’m boring”, “I’m disciplined”, “I’m a nice person”, etc. Or you might have more flexible self-constructs like “I’m boring in small talk but I’m interesting in deep talks”, “I’m disciplined when it comes to sports but lazy about house chores,” and “I’m a good person in general but I know I can be really mean sometimes”.
You might be born into a body or with a personality not of your choosing, but it is the stories you tell yourself about those things that you cannot change that form your self-constructs.
What is Other-Construct?
The other-construct is the story you tell yourself about what and how other people are. Other-constructs can be about a specific person, or it can be about other people in general.
You might hold other-constructs like “John is someone I can trust,” “other people are dangerous”, “Liz is fake”, “my boss is a snake”, “other people are kind”, or “other people don’t actually care about other people”. Again, these constructs sound absolute, but can also be more flexible and contextual as demonstrated in the self-construct section above.
Your other-constructs determine your relational patterns, and influence how you manage and function in your interpersonal relationships.
What is World-Construct?
Beyond ourselves and the people around us lies a larger construct: the world. You can think of the world-construct as the larger context in which you and other people live. It could be the political system, the climate, a geographic location, a culture, or life itself.
Some world-constructs might be “Capitalism sucks,” “Singapore is a safe place”, “the world is full of hope”, “Life is meaningless”, or “winter is depressing”.
Depending on where you’re born, when you’re born, how your socio-cultural environment is like, what your social identities are, your experiences of the world vary.
Bringing the Constructs Together
The self-, other-, and world-constructs are not formed—and they do not function—in isolation. They are relational constructs: They have to be understood as interdependent constructs that built upon, influence, and redefine each other. One construct is not more important or influential than another; they are constantly inter-mingling.
The way you understand yourself is only possible when you compare yourself with others. For example, in order to see yourself as a “kind” person, you’re defining yourself in relation to someone who you perceive as “kind” or “unkind”. In other words, it is only possible that you understand yourself because other people exist. If you’re the only person in the world, you’d just be “you”, no “kind” or “unkind”.
Your self-, other-, and world-constructs forms a coherent overarching story. Without one, the others cannot be formed and they would not make sense.
Someone who feels unconfident and cynical would likely have a pessimistic world-construct like “the world is a shitty and hopeless place”. It’s unlikely that such a person would see the world as a “place full of warmth and hope” like a person who feels confident and surrounded by kind people.
As a human being, you accumulate experiences. Depending on what kind of experiences you encounter, and the story you tell yourself about those experiences, your self-, other-, and world construct either soften or solidify.
Perhaps, you constantly find yourself in certain situations, or you surround yourself with certain types of people, that reaffirms your constructs. Or maybe you find yourself in a new environment and you meet new people that allowed you to discover new sides of yourself, other people, and the world.
Regardless, no matter how rigid and solid it seems, the constructs you hold are exactly that: a construct, not absolute reality. Admittedly, some people’s constructs remain the same for their entire lives, while others may never form a single solid construct in their lifetime.
How I Apply This in Therapy
Now, for my own example, my self-construct might be “I’m an incompetent therapist”; my other-construct might be “other people are selfish”; and my world-construct might be “the world is a hopeless place”.
To my client, I’m an “other” who was immediately seen as yet another untrustworthy person, someone who might confirm that they are unlovable as a person.
There were two broad ways I could go about this: either I continue working with the client without explicitly addressing how my client’s relational pattern shows up in our therapeutic relationship, or I explicitly bring it into the room.
Had I not addressed it, and I continue affirming my client, believing that I’m being helpful, I might’ve missed how my client inevitably sees our relationship as largely professional and unsafe—that I’m still an “other” who was untrustworthy. Consequently, the trust in our therapeutic relationship never deepens, inhibiting our work together.
How Therapy Can Change Your Relationship Patterns
Herein lies another purpose of working relationally in the here-and-now: I get to challenge the client’s other-construct.
Unlike typical social relationships, I’m offering a radical space through the therapeutic relationship to pause the performance and pretension, and to invite honesty and authenticity.
We will minimize the faking and pretending, trying to be cordial like how we are socialized in most of our social relationships. There’s something extremely powerful and liberating in being so vulnerable, real, and authentic that allows change to happen.
But of course, being honest and authentic isn’t easy even if that’s what we want.
In any case, my client’s relational patterns with other people in her life will show up in the relationship between me and them, as evident.
While I represent the “others” in my client’s world, I’m also an “other” who embodies a different way of being and could potentially challenge their other-construct.
In other words, I might prove to them that I’m actually more trustworthy than my client initially believes, and that I’m not faking it.
In our session, then, my client gets to experiment with me new ways of relating to other people. Instead of immediately approaching me with skepticism or being performative, my client could acknowledge her skepticism in the here-and-now and experiment with being more authentic.
For example, I might say to my client, “You know, what you did wasn’t easy. I think you could afford to give yourself more credit.”
Instead of insincerely saying, “Oh thanks, I appreciate it,” or brushing off my affirmation with, “nah, I don’t think so… I’m sure other people can do it better,” my client might try saying, “I’m not sure. Honestly, when you said that, I immediately thought, oh there he goes again, lying because he’s paid. And I feel a bit anxious telling you this.”
In reality, not everyone would be as authentic and honest as a therapist. However, even if my client found out that others are being disingenuous, they might also experiment with me different responses in such situations.
Of course, I’m not asking my client to be this honest and explicit with someone in your life just after a few sessions. Doing so impulsively and carelessly might harm the client instead.
Being so authentic and honest isn’t the best thing in and of itself: the context in which you embody these qualities must be taken into consideration.
And that’s what I’m here for: to offer my client, you, a space in which both you and I are willing to be authentic and to take the risk to be vulnerable in relating to one another in the moment. There is nothing more alive than this.
As your new ways of being and relating begin to develop and strengthen in the therapy room, you might feel confident enough to try them out beyond the therapy room, in your own life. This is where you begin to change your relationship dynamics that you once thought were permanent.
Ultimately, it’s first acknowledging your relational pattern, and working with something that’s not abstract but alive, that you can begin to change them.
Why I Work the Way I Work
To caveat, working relationally in this way isn’t objectively the best way. There are many competent therapist who don’t work like me, but work relationally in their own ways that are still therapeutic.
I must also judge the client’s comfort level with working in this way. That’s why the client-therapist fit is extremely important. Some client feel that this approach is too uncomfortable or vulnerable, and understandably so.
Relating in such a way can feel very “raw” when compared to how we typically relate to people in our everyday lives. In social life, we are pressured to wear a mask. Often, we feel frustrated by this pressure to conform. But sometimes, we actually enjoy hiding behind a mask because we actually feel safe and comfortable with one on.
I chose to work this way because of my own clinical interests, clinical judgment, and my personality, all of which are shaped by my life experiences.
I highly value authenticity, and I feel that professional roles and formalities sometimes hinder therapeutic work.
If we stick to our professional roles too strictly, the therapeutic relationship might become just like any other social and professional relationships: overly performative and inauthentic.
Especially for my client, me performing and pretending might actually cause more harm by reinforcing their other-construct and current relational patterns.
Because my care feels performative and inauthentic, they might go on distrusting people and continue to form unfulfilling relationships in which she feels unsafe and inauthentic.
My own experiences, alongside observing others’, have time and again illustrated how a major cause of human suffering is not only the suppressing of your own authenticity, but also your lack of experience with other people being authentic with you while accepting your authenticity.
So, what would happen if we bring the performative logic of social life into the therapy room?
About the Author
Hello, I’m Gary: A recent Anthropology graduate from Yale-NUS College, and an incoming student pursuing a Masters in Counselling. If I were to describe myself in a sentence — which is impossible, but I’ll try nonetheless — I’m currently someone who’s in a perpetual existential mood!
I invite you to join me on my journey of writing to make sense of that mood, myself, and this crazy, complex world. I’m not following a fixed structure, so I don’t know what I would come out of this conviction — I guess we can only find out as I write!
