Elements of Successful Therapeutic Relationship

Elements of Successful Therapeutic Relationship

            As a counselor, I understand the importance of therapeutic relationship in helping people to change their behaviors. The relationship between the person undertaking the therapy and the counsellor is essential in determining whether the patient shares their thoughts and believes about their behavior. As a therapist, it’s my responsibility to ensure that I provide a friendly and non-judgmental environmental where the affected individual will be free to share his/her thoughts. Dispositions are characteristics that differentiate between successful and unsuccessful therapists. Adopting the necessary dispositions will ensure that a healthy relationship exists between the affected individuals and me. Also, dispositions will help in ensuring that I adhere to ethics will interacting with my clients. I will employ all necessary counselling skills and dispositions to ensure that therapeutic relationship will not cause any harm to individuals with mental issues.

My role as a mental health counselor is to help individuals and families to deal with emotions and trauma caused by mental disorders effectively. People with mental health problems always have stress because they think that they are neglected in the community (Lysaker, 2017). Mental health disorders make the affected individuals have low esteem, and hence develop stress that can easily cause them to commit suicide. As a mental health counselor, my role is to ensure that I offer the best advice to people with mental disorders so that they can manage their stress. Also, family relatives to people with mental disorders develop emotions and trauma while dealing with their mentally affected person. My responsibility as a counselor is to advise the relatives to the affected individuals on how to deal with trauma affecting them. Mentally affected people need to be loved and cared for by the other members of the community so that they do not develop the feeling of stigmatization. As a mental counsellor, I should teach all the members of the society on how to handle people with mental disorders so that they feel like part of the community, which is a step towards their recovery. Some individuals develop mental disorders as a result of drug and substance abuse. I should help these affected people to change their behavior by educating them about the adverse effects caused by the drugs they are abusing. I should create a healthy relationship between I and mentally affected patients so that they can provide information that will help me to decide on the process the therapy should follow. I will employ the necessary dispositions to ensure that I adhere to the counselor’s professional conduct.

I will employ dispositions that will represent the qualities and values of a professional counselor to help the people in the community with mental health disorders. I will always ensure that I am psychologically fit before administering counseling services to people with mental disorders (Garner, 2016). As an individual, I acknowledge that I can be psychologically affected by family issues and other daily activities. The state of my psychologically can affect how I handle mentally affected individuals hence resulting in the unsuccessful therapy process. Therefore, to effectively assist people with mental disorders I will always ensure that I am psychologically fit before providing any counseling to the affected individuals. To ensure that my psychological state does not affect my relationship with affected individuals I will adhere to the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics. Also, self-awareness is another disposition that will ensure that community members with mental disorders are effectively assisted. As a counselor, I am aware of my personal limitations and the extent of how my counseling services can be useful. I know that sometimes I will be dealing with patients who my counseling services cannot be more useful to them because of their condition. Because I am aware of my services, I will advise mentally affected people in extreme conditions to visit other experienced counselors for better treatment of their condition. As a counsellor, I will employ patience quality during the therapeutic process. I understand that the therapeutic process can take too long before the clients can take control over their own lives, and make their own sound decisions. I will provide an environment that ensures that the clients participate in the therapeutic process so that the clients are interested in the long therapeutic process. In addition, I am aware that that cultural differences may exist between my clients and me. I will always create an environment that empowers my clients to ensure that cultural diversity does not affect my relationship with mentally affected members of the community. The disposition values will ensure that I obey all ethics required for competent counselor professional. Counseling skills are necessary for ensuring that I create a rapport with my clients.

Building rapport will help me understand my clients in depth for better treatment. Most mental affected clients change because of the relationship existing between the clients and their counselors. Creating rapport is an important counselling step. I will apply my counselling skills to ensure that I build rapport with my clients that will enable my clients to be at ease to explain their condition to me (Meier, 2019). I will use my listening skills to encourage my clients to narrate their story to me. Listening skills will help me to pay attention to the words of my clients that will help me to understand the culture of the clients. I will treat my clients with the necessary respect through observing all their rights. Respect to the clients will help them trust me with their information hence building the necessary rapport. Members in the community with mental illness are not capable of standing and fighting for their rights. I will ensure that the rights of mentally affected members of the society are obeyed by coming up with strategies to advocate for them. Some mentally affected persons do not disclose their conditions because of the fear of being discriminated by the healthy members of the community. I will educate community members on how to handle people with mental problems so that they are not discriminated because of their condition. When mentally disturbed persons are loved, they feel that they are members of the community, and they do not suffer stigmatization, which helps them to recover easily.

In summary, as a counsellor, I understand the importance of the relationship between a counsellor and the clients. A healthy relationship between a counsellor and mentally disturbed persons helps the clients to express their thoughts about their condition easily. I will create a friendly environment with my clients so that they can provide information that will help me to decide on the therapeutic process that I will administer to them. Dispositions will help me to adhere to counselor professional ethics, which is necessary when dealing with mentally disturbed people. I will use listening skills and other counseling skills to build a rapport with my clients that will help the clients to develop trust in me.  Other community members discriminate mentally disturbed persons because of their condition. Coming up with advocating strategies for mentally disturbed persons ensures that they are not discriminated in the society, which aids for their recovery.