Therapeutic alliance

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Throughout the journey as a trauma survivor as well as a counselor.

I have learned to follow the pace of my client. Healing from trauma is not something that you can rush. It takes time to build the therapeutic alliance and trust for the healing to begin.

As a trauma survivor, I know that trust is not something that I can rush for. As a client, I take time to build trust with my therapist to enter a stage where we can start working on trauma. As a counselor, I understand that client takes time to build up the therapeutic alliance to start the trauma work. 

According to Gentry, Baranowsky, and Rhoton ( 2017), they reviewed the four main active ingredients in treatment for trauma, which are therapeutic alliance, relaxation, exposure/narrative, and cognitive restructuring. 

Focusing on the element of the therapeutic alliance, building trust with the client sets the foundation for the healing journey. As a client, if I don't trust or I don't have a relationship with my therapist, I will not go back for a second session. 

As a counselor, if my client doesn't have a therapeutic alliance with me, we are not heading anyway. 

I believe to build a therapeutic alliance with my client, I have to:

(1) meet my client at where he or she is
(2) create a safe space
(3) respect my client to know what is best for him or her
(4) unconditional regard and non-judgemental 
(5) Unconditional positive regard 
(6) believe we have the ability to heal ourselves
(7) empathy
(8) genuine 


Counseling is a journey of self-discovery and healing. 







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