The Power of the Therapist-Client Relationship in Healing Trauma
Trauma is impactful in so many ways due to how it lands within the brain and body of those who experience it. A person who is stuck in fight, flight, or freeze in their system will find that connecting with others can be challenging. Those who have developmental or attachment trauma will also experience this as well.
While it is important that a therapist have proper training and experience with trauma, it is also ancillary to the client-therapist relationship. This, above all else, determines the efficacy of the method or therapy modality being implemented.
Why the Therapeutic Relationship Matters in Healing Trauma
Trauma Is Often Rooted in Relationships
Trauma often occurs within relationships. While a lot of trauma is often highlighted in the media and stories, such as natural disasters, accidents, and so on, these are not what most people come in to see me for. A lot of people suffer from histories of abuse, neglect, and betrayal. Survivors of this type of trauma often struggle with the ability to trust and find a sense of safety which creates a whole host of problems with trying to make meaningful connections with others.
Complex PTSD and Relational Wounding
In Complex PTSD, a diagnosis that is not formally acknowledged by the DSM-V but is widely understood to be a very real thing that people experience, the trauma suffered in relationships is so great that there are extreme challenges with creating and maintaining new ones. This isn’t to say it is impossible. However, this diagnosis is important because it highlights just how intensely prolonged exposure to traumatic experiences can impact relationship building.
Therapy as a Safe Space to Relearn Connection
I like to think about the relationship between therapist and client as “the lab.” It is a way in which we can start to explore together how to test-run new relational dynamics in order to create safety and support both in session and outside of it.
Relational Dynamics That Support Trauma Healing In Therapy
The therapeutic relationship is so much more than what fancy new psychological tool or therapy modality the therapist uses. This is why it is important, as a client, to find somebody who you feel understands you. The “vibes” just have to be right, you know?
What Are Corrective Emotional Experiences?
Corrective Emotional Experiences are things that a person can experience after their trauma that help to heal some part of them. It is the thing that didn’t get to happen during their trauma that now the person gets to experience.
Example of a Corrective Emotional Experience
An example of a corrective experience is getting to parent in the way you wish you would have been parented. It is being able to say “I know that you are feeling so sad right now, sweetie, and that’s okay. Can I sit with you for a moment?”
Clients get to have these sorts of corrective experiences in the therapeutic relationship as well.
Core Components of a Healing Therapist-Client Relationship
Here are some key elements of the therapeutic relationship that facilitate healing:
Safety and Nervous System Regulation
Getting to be able to take in the safety of the session room is an important thing for people. Can they feel how quiet it is? Can they feel the ability to move around, to make choices about where they place their things?
Emotional safety is like this as well. The client gets to experience being able to express challenging emotions and be met with softness. In my sessions, I often direct my clients to notice how it feels to receive safety from another person. How can they tell I’m safe? How does their body let them know that? (Also, sometimes they might say it doesn’t feel safe and that is a great way to explore that as well. It is all welcome!)
Trust Built Over Time
Clients learn that when they set appointments they will be respected, and that their time will be honored. Clients get the experience of being able to let somebody else hold the big scary pieces of their life with them, which creates an immense amount of trust. Trust takes time.
Attunement and Emotional Presence
Attunement is paramount to the therapeutic relationship. Attunement is that “je ne sais quoi” in therapy; the way in which the therapist appropriately responds to what the client is saying. It is the body language, tone of voice, and responsiveness of the therapist that lets the client know that they are seen and understood.
Boundaries and Mutual Consent
Oftentimes, boundaries are one of the first negotiations that happen in the therapeutic relationship. Is it okay if we talk about this? Does going into this topic too intensely feel okay for you? Are we sitting too close or too far away? Are you okay with me interrupting you at this moment? All of these things are small ways in which clients can explore setting boundaries in the therapeutic relationship and beyond.
Taking in the Experience: How Trauma Healing Happens in the Body
Interoception and Mindfulness in Trauma Recovery
It is important to be able to take in these corrective experiences instead of just letting them happen. By using something called interoceptive awareness and mindfulness, clients can start to actually feel how safe relationships are to be in. This develops the connections in the brain that attune to how any new relationship should feel.
When clients spend more time being emotionally regulated in a relationship, it makes other relationships feel more possible. It creates connections within the brain that say “oh hey, not all relationships are extremely dangerous and have the potential to completely destroy me.” This has to be a felt experience, however.
Shifting Into the Ventral Vagal State (Rest and Connect)
In somatic therapy, we work to find more pathways to the ventral vagal system. This is the part of the nervous system that is involved in resting, digesting, and connecting. If we are in fight, flight, or freeze, it makes it almost impossible to form a safe relationship with anybody.
By spending more time in this ventral vagal state, we are able to more easily make connections with others. By bringing attention to when a client is in this part of their nervous system in session, we create yet another corrective experience. Being vulnerable with another human being isn’t as dangerous anymore.
How Do I Know if my Therapist-Client Relationship is Working?
Part of the healing journey is learning to trust yourself and advocate for yourself. This starts at the level of the therapeutic relationship.
Questions to Reflect On Your Therapist-Client Relationship
Here are some quick things to check out to see if the therapeutic relationship is working for you. Do you:
Feel understood?
Feel safety in your body at least the majority of the time in session? (If not, this may also just be trauma that you are needing to work on – talk about it with them!)
Find yourself being more vulnerable over time?
Feel able to ask for things that you need from your therapist?
Feel like your insight and perspective are being solicited and respected?
Trust that your therapist has your best interest in mind?
The Importance of Rupture and Repair
It is important to bring up relational ruptures in order to mend them. Again, this is “the lab;” the place where it is safe to lab test some of your new skills that you are working on, such as rupture and repair, self-advocacy, and boundary setting.
Ready to Begin Your Trauma Healing Journey?
Are you ready to start a new therapeutic relationship?
Lauren Bradley is a trauma therapist trained in Somatic Experiencing. She is currently taking on new clients and would love to connect with individuals who are ready to start their journey to healing trauma.
Frequently Asked Questions About The Therapeutic Relationship
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Because trauma often happens in relationships, trauma healing also happens in relationships. A safe, attuned therapeutic bond can restore trust and nervous system regulation.
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It often feels calming, respectful, and predictable. You should feel emotionally safe, increasingly open, and supported in expressing your needs and boundaries.
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A Corrective Emotional Experience is when a therapist helps you experience something new and healing that contrasts with past trauma, like being heard, respected, or comforted when you weren’t before.
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Somatic therapy helps you feel safety in your body, which supports vulnerability and emotional connection. It builds capacity for real-time relational healing.
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Ask yourself:
Do I feel safe?
Do I feel understood?
Do I feel respected?
Am I becoming more open over time?
If yes, the relationship is likely helping your healing process.
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Yes, especially with relational trauma. But that discomfort can be explored in therapy, and over time, a skilled therapist can help you feel safe in relationships again.
Stevie Olson-Spiegel is a Licensed Therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner located in Kansas City. She uses Somatic Experiencing as her main body-based trauma healing modality, as well as EMDR. As an Intuitive Eating Counselor, she uses these principles to help her clients challenge their relationship with their cultural misconceptions about their body and food.
