Year 2 week 3

This week was about the therapeutic contract and I was very sorry to miss it. Its something I’m dreading in the exam. Its something I know that I include but struggle to quantify and never am able to repeat. That’s why I wanted to be there.

The therapeutic contract is the part of the agreement between counsellor and client that covers how they will actually work together. How the counsellor can be supportive to the client and what it is that the client actually wants to achieve. It is important for many reasons but partly because it empowers the client as they can be part of forming the process that they are about to engage it. They can help to shape what it is they are part of.

Being person centred, it is very much an expression of our embodiment of this core condition to bring a therapeutic contract into to how we will work with clients. To engage them in the process to formulate the relationship is key, this is where the relationship really begins I suppose. There are of course formalities and these need to be delivered prior to the relationship going any further as the client has the right to know what to expect and indeed the counsellor has a duty to be clear about what they expect too. Times, prices, timeliness, confidentiality with a disclaimer, cancelation policy and not arriving intoxicated for example are all very important boundaries and rules that necessarily surround the counselling experience. There are of course basic and practical reasons to have clear prices, expectations and a fair and consistent cancellation policy for example, but further, this ties into the ethical treatment of clients, such as their autonomy and justice. All clients need to feel that they are making an informed choice about what it is they are getting into. Also a clear standard cancellation and price policy treats all clients fairly and justly. That sort of clarity is good in terms of my boundaries I feel, as what would be a pattern for me would be to bend a price or extend a time, and then develop resentments at a later date. But this would likely affect the counselling service I provided and so absolutely must be avoided. Anyway, following that there is the actual working relationship, the level of connection, the expectations of the client and the ability of the counsellor to meet perceived needs, that all should be clearly spoken about as best possible, given that the clients needs may well be fluid and changing.

As a counsellor in training I wish all my clients to be open and honest and to take the process seriously. However the person sat opposite me may not be in the best place to trust me yet, if ever. What I am confident about is the power of the relationship in person centred counselling and so at all times, it is that which is important and necessary. That involves treating the client with respect and understanding. So how can I go about doing that in those initial stages of contracting?

For me it’s about openness. I would want to state openly that I have a person centred training and try my best to unpack that for the client. By letting them know what it is I feel is needed from my perspective, accepting of the client, being non-judgemental and treating them with positive regard creates a potential environment for them to feel they can trust me. Is that what they would like?

Letting the person know my level of training and my role and seeing how that fits with what they are expecting is important too and seeing if that is what they were expecting. All I can do is be open about that.

When I’m working with drug and alcohol clients, there is something akin to a therapeutic contract in so much as I work with their goals. I often draw a conceptualisation or node link map of whats going on for them, and we can draw together what is and what could be and in between is the work we can do. In this respect its probably the nearest to a therapeutic contract in my actual job.

Now I’ve had a chance to look through some guidelines on contracting, I’m pleased to find I was not so far of the mark. Finding out what the client wants to achieve is a very importsant part of the therapeutic contracting. Finding out what they want to work on gives us both a chance to know something very important. It may be that I am not trained to work on say issues around bereavement or perhaps feel that a certain mental health issue is beyond the support that I can offer safely. That is very important to know in advance.

For the client, to have shared their expectations or goals is very important. They may be happy with just talking and being heard each session. Or maybe they have a clear goal in mind that by the end of the sessions they would like to feel more able to know what to do about a certain life issue. Hearing them say this and gaining full understand about what it is the client would like is crucial, as this may well need to be unpacked together as the expectation may be unrealistic, such as ‘I would like to know whether or not top stay with my husband’. Well that may well be something the person feels able to know or not, but it is not necessarily going to be a product of counselling, as this can only offer a safe and non-judgemental place to be heard, and hopefully to make sense of their own thoughts.

I start my new placement this week. I’m not nervous at all. I’m excited to be doing something new. I like a challenge. It will be really good for me. Bring it on!