Education Commons^™

Processing The Therapeutic Relationship, Clara E. Hill, Sarah Knox

College of Education Faculty Research and Publications

The authors propose that if therapists and clients process their therapeutic relationship (i.e., directly address in the here and now feelings about each other and about the inevitable problems that emerge in the therapy relationship), feelings will be expressed and accepted, problems will be resolved, the relationship will be enhanced, and clients will transfer their learning to other relationships outside of therapy. The authors review theories supporting the idea of processing the therapeutic relationship, discuss the relevant empirical literature in this area, and provide their conceptualization of the construct of processing the therapeutic relationship based on the theory and empirical …