Relational Phenomenological Psychotherapy

Relational Phenomenological PsychotherapyrnRelational psychotherapy emphasizes the centrality of relatedness in human life.rnRelating is not something that we do at times and don’t do at other times, but is an inherent dimension of humanness.rnAlthough the psychotherapist and the patient are unique individuals, they are not two separate “isolated minds”, but an ongoing relational system.rnRelational psychotherapists, therefore, cultivate a moment to moment awareness of the implicit as well as explicit relational needs, strivings, fears and struggles of the client and of the partnership.rnWe listen and respond to the interactional dance of therapy picking up on its nuances.rnWe as therapists sense much more than can be articulated about the infinitely complex interactional moment.rnBecoming sensitive to what is barely communicated, perhaps enacted, enables us to ask into the specific kind of connectedness that is being called for or avoided.rnAs Gendlin says : “ many of the struggles and problems we deal in psychotherapy and in life can be thought as “stuck interactions”.rnA quite particular relational dance, a different kind of connectedness than has been available, holds the possibility of developing an expanded more delineated and vital self experience.rnOut of a new “us” new self-experience can emerge. rnFocusing oriented Psychotherapy Focusing is a process of sensing into what is palpably felt but not yet worded or thought – the intricate quality of what is implicitly known but unarticulated.rnIt entails a shift of attention from linear narrative and what one has already packaged in form ideas, to the unclear fuzzy edge of thinking/feeling.rnThis shift of attention requires and also facilitates an attitude of expectant, accepting inquiry.rnFocusing can be described as a dialogue between implicit and explicit dimensions of experience.rnIt is a dialogue with one’s palpable non-conscious self, each step of which carries the process forward opening out to small steps of change.