The Therapist As Relational Artist

Rich Hycner, PhD

The aim of this workshop is to explore the professional artistry involved in our psychotherapy work when balancing the client’s emotional safety with her/his growing edge (while in the background the therapist is also balancing her/his own safety and growing edge). 

There will be a presentation of theory, numerous individual demonstrations of relational work, and the likelihood of a group demonstration, and in-depth clinical discussions of the demonstrations. If participants wish, there can even be supervised practice sessions. Newcomers to this workshop are welcome while those who have participated in previous workshops will be able to build on their previous experience.

Rich is particularly focused on the therapeutic relationship as the nexus for healing, and views the therapist’s presence as an especially unique and challenging medium for exploring the relational and experiential dimensions of therapy. The therapist needs to be mindful of her/his emotional range and depth, to be as fully present as possible to the innumerable possibilities of connecting and/or disconnecting in the therapeutic relationship. It is an ever ongoing challenge to be as present as possible to “what is,” but to also imagine and “lean into” the next connecting movement toward “what can be.”  The therapist’s acutely sensitive attunement leads to either greater relational connection and the client's (and possibly the therapist's) intrapersonal integration—or if momentarily unattuned, this may lead to further relational disconnection, defensiveness, and compartmentalization. Even these moments of apparent relational disconnection will be explored for turning them into possibilities for deeper therapeutic connections. 

Rich’s thinking is permeated by Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue and Erving and Miriam Polster’s creative Gestalt therapy approaches, and forty-three years of being a psychotherapist. He is the author of Between Person and Person: Toward a Dialogical Psychotherapy and co-author with Lynne Jacobs of The Healing Relationship: A Dialogic/Self Psychology Approach. Rich and Lynne Jacobs also co-edited; Relational Approaches in Gestalt Therapy.