The Therapeutic Relationship

Before our class lecture on the therapeutic relationship, I had heard of it before. In my undergraduate major, therapeutic recreation, we discussed how important this was for your ability to be the most effective therapist possible. Some good examples I have seen in the past, have been at some of my undergraduate practicums - people who actively listened, collaborated with clients and their care team, and advocated for their clients needs demonstrated some of the best characteristics of a therapeutic relationship in my opinion. I personally worked very hard at one of my practicums to establish appropriate boundaries - the population was adolescent youth who were diagnosed with mental health and/or behavioral conditions. Because I was new to the field and very close in age to some of the residents, it was especially important to maintain professionalism. I did this by establishing boundaries from the beginning, for instance the facility required us to use our last names only, so I was Ms. Denton. It was important to me and sometimes even difficult to maintain the balance of them feeling comfortable enough with me to work on building our relationship, versus them feeling like I, their activity therapist, was a peer that they could treat with less respect, and cross boundaries that shouldn't be crossed. All of these elements are good things to consider when working on building a therapeutic relationship.