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Some individuals think that psychotherapy is not effective, is harmful. Why do clients feel this way? A new study aims to find out the experience of therapy for clients who have showed no significant improvement or condition has deterioriated instead.
Andrzej Werbart and his colleagues conducted in-depth interviews with 20 non-improved clients (out of a larger client group of 134). They found out that it revolves around a key central theme: "spinning one's wheels". A quote from the client, "When I think back on the therapy, I get the feeling that I often sat and talked; sometimes something important came up, but often it felt like it was pretty much just spinning my wheels."
The clients saw their therapists as distant and not fully committed. The researchers who have worked with 16 therapists, many of them highly experienced, is found that they might have been guilty of being too rigid by using the traditional psychoanalytic technique.
To address their client’s treatment preferences and expectatios, a more “directive, task and action-oriented” form of therapy may have been more suitable for these clients.
Is your therapist working out for you?
Category(s):Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Source material from British Psychological Society
