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Essay on Working at Relational Depth

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Christine King 23rd November 2011

WHAT IMPACT HAS THE RELATIONAL APPROACH, AS DESCRIBED IN ‘BEYOND EMPATHY’ AND MEARNS AND COOPER’S ‘WORKING AT RELATIONAL DEPTH’, HAD ON YOUR CLIENT WORK. ILLUSTRATE YOUR ANSWER WITH REFERENCE TO A SINGLE SESSION WITH A CLIENT.

Introduction

This essay will be looking at the importance of relational depth and further more I will attempt to demonstrate my growing awareness of my relationship with my clients and how it has impacted on my client work.

What is Relational depth?

Relational Depth comes from the book entitled ‘Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy’ (2005), Dave Mearns and Mick Cooper. ‘Such an …show more content…

In this session I trusted my client to be in control of the pace and where she wanted to go (Rogers 1959)
Also I have an awareness of the B,A,C,P framework I need to make sure I avoid psychological harm towards my client. (non- Maleficence)
Mearns and Cooper are in agreement that clients need to lead the way, they state on (p 113) we are meeting our needs rather than our client’s if we are trying to do something to them.

Relational depth within different therapeutic models.

Yalom, explains how relationship problems display themselves in the therapy room, feelings are brought into the here and now.
Whether we are from different cultures or religions or if we look at the behaviour of animals we all like to be connected socially and feel accepted in society. (Yalom)

If we look at Maslow Hierarchy needs, he looks at human needs he believed that love and belonging are very important to our self- esteem. If these needs are not met we may not meet self- actualization. (Milliken & Honeycutt)

John Bowlby developed the theory of attachment he researched the significance of the relationship between a mother and her child. His theory shows that this bond

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