Have you ever wondered what helps make therapy successful?
Which are the main tools, the modalities, the therapist training that mean you will get the best results?
The answer will possibly surprise you. When research was done into classifying the factors contributing to a successful outcome of psychotherapy, the two by far most important factors were actually unrelated to school of thoughts, modalities or training!
The first predictor of therapeutic outcomes is about you, the client: it is your desire to change. It is the realisation that if you want to improve your life, you are responsible to make it happen. Mostly that translates into three options: change your circumstances, leave your circumstances or find a way to make peace with them.
Once you accept that you are responsible for your life, and no-one else, your therapy can become about how to change.
The second most important factor is the relationship you develop with the therapist. Yes, getting on well (which does not mean being unchallenged!) with your therapist, trusting him or her, having a close relationship is the second biggest healing factor.
Only then, way further down, come in factors like training, modalities etc.
So basically, once you're ready for change, seek a therapist who you can relate to, whom your gut feeling endorses and you feel comfortable with, who will still challenge you where appropriate, yet not judge you, and your therapy will be most likely to succeed.
To me, the therapeutic relationship is one of the most intimate relationships there is.
To be trusted with someone's innermost thoughts and feelings is the most sacred bond I know.
And it fills me with joy to be able to repay this trust by being there for my clients, not only reliably, but wholeheartedly.