治疗师与客户之间的关系

The road to hell is paved with…

As a person, family or country becomes less focused on mere physical survival, the awareness of the importance of emotional health, relationships and spirituality becomes stronger. Ever more people are looking for help and guidance in this context. Eventually, some people wish to change from the role of a client to that of a helper. However, often not even in the framework of formal, university education enough attention is dedicated to the relationship between a helper and a client, apart from some general guidelines. Such knowledge is particularly insufficient in the area of “alternative” helping methods. So it happens sometimes that helpers, even when they act with best intentions, harm their clients more than they help them.

作为对所有考虑在未来帮助他人的人以及已经从事或计划从事治疗师/教练工作的人的指导，我希望提请你们注意客户-治疗师关系的复杂性和影响，以及负责任地处理这种关系的重要性。

在 其他帮助方法, some people call themselves therapists without any training or after short training in a narrow area, which might be based on dogma and theories rather than on the openness of mind, experience and thinking. Knowledge without inspiration and good intentions won’t bring much good, but lack of education and knowledge will cause people to make huge mistakes.

Regardless of therapists’ best intentions, the success of their work will primarily depend on their emotional maturity and responsibility. This means that therapists have to heal themselves and their own lives: resolve disturbing emotions, build fulfilling relationships and create lives which fulfill their emotional needs. If a therapist’s needs are not fulfilled or if they are still immature (“false” needs compensating for the healthy ones, e.g. the need for power can compensate for healthy need for love) there is a big risk that they may attempt to satisfy their needs through their relationships with their clients.

The risk is increased by the fact that often a therapist can fulfill such needs more easily in the relationship therapist-client than in other relationships. The premise of such a relationship is that the therapist is in the position of authority, while the client trusts them sufficiently to accept them as authority. In such a relationship it’s much 更易于影响和操纵 与在知识和能力上彼此平等的人之间的日常关系相比。

潜意识的舞蹈

有时，人们选择治疗师这一职业是因为它能让他们 权威、权力和地位 在他人眼中。这些人可能 说服自己比别人更有能力，有权影响他人. This attitude doesn’t necessarily have to be obvious to others. 

Sometimes a therapist’s wish to make the world a better place will result in attempts to change others without allowing them to grow at their own pace. This is often a result of an 不自觉地需要摆脱自己的幼稚情绪. Just as in love relationships we often choose partners who are in some ways similar to our parents, to fulfill the unconscious wish to change or save our parents, in a therapist’s position we can project this savior’s attitude to the rest of humanity. Subconsciously, we might hope to make a difference, deserve love or approval, make things easier for ourselves 就像我们早期的家庭所希望的那样. If clients don’t change at the speed and in the direction we want, this can provoke 颐指气使. 

An example of similar behavior are animal rights or environmental issues activists, who sometimes try to change other people by violent methods, seeing them as evil, instead of as people conditioned by their education and insufficiently informed. Such people often identify themselves with what they are trying to protect, while projecting anger toward those who they see as “victimizers”. This anger has its origin in their 与父母或其他当局的关系. Even if the motivation for their actions is positive, if they act on their childish feelings they are neither able to see the others’ perspective, or to understand that their violent behavior will naturally trigger defensive reactions rather than agreement.

有一小部分治疗师有意识地认为，他们有权 强权. Such persons usually create rather rigid, hierarchical organizations around them with elements of personality cults, and they openly take a dominant attitude towards their clients, requesting things from them and prohibiting things to them, which doesn’t help clients to improve their lives, but helps maintain the power structure. Such requests can be explained by different moralistic ideas, but it is important that they are not logically and naturally connected to the solution of a client’s problem. For example, requests to adhere to certain ritual procedures and formalities, not to explore different approaches and not to question the therapist’s dogmas. 

施加这种影响的方式可能各不相同：从微妙的群体压力和非口头的不赞同到直接的惩罚或恐吓。常见的结果是，当事人被慢慢带入一个不平等的位置，同时在他们的内心产生无能、依赖、恐惧、内疚或自卑的感觉，而不是觉得自己有价值，能够自己掌控生活，创造幸福。

For this to be achieved, the client must have complementary emotional issues: lack of self-confidence and self-trust, a feeling that it’s natural not to be respected and treated as equal, and that their opinions and inner guidance are not taken into consideration. Since some people grew up in exactly such an atmosphere, it is not difficult to induce them to accept it once again. Actually, 许多人所追求的 治疗师或教练是 权力和决策：替代父母.这就是为什么有些客户对那些平等对待他们、把他们当作有能力的人的治疗师的信任度要低于那些想要支配他们的治疗师。

最喜欢的魔术

我们每个人都相信自己是对的，也喜欢自己是对的。教练或治疗师也不例外。然而，就像其他人一样、 治疗师受其经验和信仰的限制. One of the key problems with many approaches is the assumption that therapists know the answers, while clients know little or nothing about their problem. Answers are more frequently sought in either rational knowledge or emotional (intuitive) impressions of the therapist, than in the client’s inner resources and subconscious mind.

不仅不可能对所有甚至大部分已知的观点和治疗方法进行透彻分析，而且由于其他生活义务，治疗师往往没有时间深入研究相对狭窄的兴趣范围。每个人都喜欢某些知识领域，而那些在情感上不那么吸引人的知识领域通常显得不那么重要。因此、 每位治疗师都会在自己的专业领域寻找答案, and they might not want, or won’t be able to, think of the entire spectrum of different possibilities.

This is natural and almost unavoidable, but it can become dangerous in case of suggestive approaches, or in case of therapists who are prone to exert their influence and authority over others. Sometimes a therapist who is an expert in a particular issue, or who may be excited about some recent findings or ideas, leads clients into believing that they have that very problem. “如果你唯一的工具就是一把锤子，那么所有问题看起来都像钉子。” 

As for clients, they come for help, very often due to grave problems, and it is pleasant to believe that somebody can give them solutions. The client can long for somebody to take over a part of the burden of decision making, or to offer new, interesting belief structures which give hope for “instant”, effortless solutions. Clients might long for somebody to whom they can surrender their lives and whom they can idealize, just like parents. 生活中的难题自然会激起孩子的童心因此，当时被视为权威的人很容易成为客户的父母替代品。

因此，客户可能会经历一个与希望信任父母以获得安全感的小孩子相似的过程：他们可能会得到积极的惊喜，也可能会在父母的帮助下获得安全感。 把治疗师猜对或做得好的一切都理想化.在此基础上，他们可能会开始相信治疗师总是知道自己在做什么。如果此时治疗师说了一些错误、抽象或难以证明的话、 客户可能会开始寻找理由 for such ideas, something like: “Well, maybe it could be true? I never thought about it before!” If there is some truth in the therapist’s assumptions, even if it is not the full truth or an important part of it, the client might focus on it and feel that the therapist recognizes their problems better than themselves. For example, if the therapist says that the problem lies in the fact that the client did not forgive somebody – and who of us does not bear any grudge against important people? – the client can be impressed by the insight that some anger is still within them, but overlook the fact that this might not be the core problem.

性与治疗

事实上，如果有什么东西在身体上或情感上吸引了我们，我们的大脑就会想出无数的理由，无论多么牵强附会，来证明自己的行为是正当的。这在治疗师与客户关系的各个方面也不例外，而且在某些情况下会变得很危险。

其中一种情况是治疗师与客户之间的性亲密关系。男性治疗师尤其会对女性客户产生性吸引力，而作为客户的女性，往往比男性更容易对治疗师产生情感上的吸引力，将其视为父亲或其他重要人物的潜意识替代物。这时 各种理由 开始创建。

One of the most common justifications is that there is nothing negative in sexuality, that one should not be ashamed of it and sometimes even that a sexual act itself has therapeutic properties. A good example I heard of are several men who are massage therapists, who believe that a sexual intercourse helps to “release energy” and that there is nothing wrong with sexual intercourse during a massage, if a client wishes and asks for it (sometimes with some nudging in that direction).
除了完全 忽视性的情感方面这表明治疗师对治疗师与求助者之间关系中更深层、更敏感的方面，尤其是对以下方面的无知 移情机制和幼稚情感 一般来说 

优秀治疗师的标准之一是 understanding and respect for a client’s vulnerable position与日常生活中的其他关系相比，求助者更容易受到伤害。在治疗过程中，求助者不仅在情感上是开放的，而且这种开放性往往会激起求助者在其他方面的不满情绪。 被压抑的情感、需求和渴望很容易投射到治疗师身上 被认为是支持和权威的来源（两者都是父母的特征）。滥用这种情感会给客户带来创伤。

客户还是孩子？

在某些方法中，治疗师被鼓励扮演客户父母的替代品。这些方法假定，这将有助于求助者意识到并释放对父母的未决情感。这种方法之所以值得商榷，是因为在大多数情况下： 意识到并表达情感并不足以永久解决情感问题. Many people have read books that have helped them become aware of what they feel and why, many people learn to express their emotions – yet it’s often not enough to achieve true relief and freedom. In my opinion, external action and conscious understanding help somewhat, but are usually not enough to reach the subconscious mind. 

在某种程度上，几乎所有的痴情都是在寻找替代父母。 如果人际关系或外在经历能够化解幼稚的情感，那么很多人都会相对容易地自行化解这些情感.然而，这些关系只是 取代, they are not what the “inner child” is really looking for, and our subconscious minds know that. That’s why many people, even when they have a very supporting and loving partner, won’t find relief within an intimate relationship and will probably continue having immature emotional patterns. Besides, focused and deep work on recovering split personality parts and resolving deep emotional beliefs is often missing in the therapeutic approach based on transference.

治疗师是一个能解决人类所有问题的人。客户所表达的情绪以及他们的行为可以 trigger the therapist’s conditioned reactions, i.e. unresolved emotions. Just as clients can subconsciously see their parents or another important figures in a therapist, the same association and recollection process is spontaneously and unavoidably taking place in the therapist as well. If they don’t observe themselves and their feelings carefully, maybe they won’t recognize conditioned prejudice or attraction awakening within them. 

It is possible that a therapist unconsciously begins to see a client not only as a person from their past, but as a child; or they can see their own unresolved problems in the client’s. It’s a great temptation for therapists not to impose themselves as authorities in clients’ lives, and not to believe that they necessarily know better than clients what the problem is and how to solve it. 如果客户不接受治疗师的建议，有些治疗师甚至会感到被冒犯或被贬低。. Some clients welcome advice and instructions – someone who will take over the responsibility for their lives and tell them what to do – but then, instead of listening to their own inner truth, they start listening to a person who actually knows little about them and their lives.

直觉还是自我陶醉？

Many therapists, just as many people, like to think that they know much more than they actually do. Especially in the area of “intuitive diagnostics”, as well as predictions for future (an area most prone to abuse), rare helper will consider the possibility of their own mistake, or even make an effort to carefully choose their words. I remember several encounters when I was given, often unsolicited, guesses about my physical health, and each of them was completely different. None of them corresponded to my own feeling and experience. The majority of those “diagnoses” were made very fast, expressed by strong words, without paying real attention. Most of those guesses were based on very uncertain physical indicators such as pulse or aching body parts during a massage. Sometimes they were even based on a single glance. In most of these cases, I felt that those people were trying to feel powerful, to make an impression that they knew things about others which others either didn’t know, or didn’t want to be known.

即使直觉建议是最不可靠的建议，客户有时仍然最信任它们.看来，一个人提交的证明越少，他就越有可能......。 求助者自由地认为治疗师拥有某种特殊的力量.我们的生活中都需要一点魔法，但如果魔法会伤害我们，那就不行了。

I’ve met quite a few people who have been told by some negligent astrologists or fortune-tellers things like: “You can’t be helped” or “You’ll never find a partner”, leaving the people in the state of fear and shock and bereaved of hope. Having spoken with some people about this, I found out that one thing was common in almost all of such cases: the client received quite a good intuitive analysis of their past and present, which would invoke trust (and which is not so difficult to do for people skilful in observation and manipulative communication). However, the predictions for future turned out to be of very poor quality or completely wrong. 

除了未来无法确定，或者至少无法确定之外，每个做出这种预测的人都会在自己的印象中打上自己的个性和经验的烙印。由于他们常常忽视与自己的情绪打交道的重要性，因此他们的预测会带有自己的世界观和未解决的情绪。如果你想找一个能告诉你未来的人，至少要选择一个看起来快乐、平衡、对生活抱有积极态度的人。

抵抗与责任

Many methods don’t pay enough attention to resolving emotions, choosing rather to avoid, control or manipulate them. Often a client is told to “simply forgive” or in a similar way to “get rid” of their emotions quickly, maybe by symbolically burning them, sending them to the universe or avoiding them through discipline and willpower. As messages and lessons from these emotions are not received, the important relationships are left unresolved and the split personality parts are not found and integrated, this cannot yield long lasting results. Clients often try to believe that they have solved their problems, ending up suppressing and neglecting these parts of themselves even more. If they finally admit that problems are still there, therapists might call it “resistance”.

A “resistant client” – although sometimes it does happen – can be an 治疗师逃避质疑的借口 治疗方法的效率。特别是那些倾向于道德化或轻视某些情绪的治疗师，可能会激起客户不被理解和接受的感觉，也可能会让客户无意识地感到不适和困惑，因为他们觉得缺少了什么。在这种情况下，治疗师往往会过快地将这种感觉贴上抗拒的标签。

真正的阻力 往往是无意识的、微妙的。它往往 试图保护自己免受痛苦，降低变化的速度和强度, if the change could threaten a client’s emotional balance or important relationships (if the client feels that their family or friends could react negatively to the change). Resistance is often shown through expressing feelings or behavior which hide other feelings that are difficult to accept (e.g. anger instead of guilt or shame, rationalization, blaming and similar). A therapist can have a subtle impression that a client does not express everything they feel. Often the client’s nonverbal communication is incongruent. In such situations it’s important that the therapist can be clear within their own mind and able to separate their own unpleasant emotions from what they feels is going on within the client.

I often hear about “alternative therapists” who are so unmindful and unwilling to take responsibility that they, not just during therapy but also during any other everyday activity, attribute most of their unpleasant emotions to the “negative energy” they supposedly took over from clients during sessions. Moreover, they might teach such an approach to their students. Such therapists tend to present themselves as spiritually advanced people, and they talk about their “taking over” client’s problems as a proof of their compassion. The stories about “a client’s negative energy sticking” onto the therapist can be a kind of a bogey for new students. Some therapists love to use such stories to display their strength and 正义, and partly also to play a victim. Then they make a show of energetic cleaning of themselves and their room, of the stories about taking on their clients’ symptoms and emotions, about clients as “energy vampires” and the like.  

I think such stories are blown way out of proportion. Therapists – through such stories – deny their own power and free will to avoid taking responsibility for their feelings. According to my experience, the only thing that a therapist can “take over” from a client is emerging of feelings that they already carry within. The less healthy a therapist, the more they suppress and deny their split-off parts, the more likely it is that a client’ unpleasant emotions will trigger their own. The more balanced, integrated and healthy a therapist is, the less it is possible for them to feel threatened by anything coming from a client.

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