It is not just a Therapist's job to FIX individuals that walk through their office doors, but alternatively to "Help Them Help Themselves. " During this process, the therapist provides a safe haven to explore issues, and an experts positioning on the sequences of behavior and patterns of interaction at play in the couples relationship.

It's often difficult, as the saying goes, "to begin to see the forest for the trees" when one is in the center of crisis in their particular personal trials and tribulations of life and love. While the Therapist, it's my job to simply help the couple/individual seem sensible of and choose possible options for moving forward inside their relationships in a pro-active and positive manner.

With these basic and essential boundaries in place, the groundwork for the therapeutic process begins.

During the initial three sessions, the therapist must "join" with the individual, meaning, that each respective party begins to feel comfortable inside their role as patient, and therapist. It is over these crucial beginning sessions that the doctor/patient relationship is nurtured and developed.

If indeed the in-patient decides that there is a "safe place" and they wish to continue with therapy using this doctor/ therapist, it's at this time that the interactive aspects of trust and therapeutic process between Doctor and Patient develop into a working relationship.

The trick to a" healthy working relationship" with your therapist, and to getting the absolute most out of your therapy, is in truly understanding the Therapeutic process. A number of these rules for therapy are listed below.

BASIC RULES OF GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR THERAPY:

1. Going into therapy, decide if you are there to "win" at something, or even to "work with solutions" to simply help your relationship survive.

2. Don't expect the Therapist to "take sides ".Your therapist is well-trained to work from an Objective stance, not Subjective.

3. Drop Your Weapons: Don't come right into therapy with a "chip on your own shoulder" you're either here to gain a much better knowledge of your relationship or even to fight about the past. Unfair fighting is really a deal breaker to any relationship.

4. Take responsibility for your own personel life, relationship and therapeutic process. Simply planning to therapy won't "fix" your relationship. It's your responsibility and your partner to check out through with the therapeutic process both in and from the therapy session.

5. Expect your therapist to provide interactive discussion during therapy. Today's therapy hopes to supply the patient with Solutions for Today's problems. Simply venting or speaking with the therapist for the 55 minute session is old school therapy, psychodynamic, and often leaves the in-patient feeling as thought they've turn out of therapy without new tools or skills to work with.

6. In solution-focused therapy, homework, or directives for further development of your therapy treatment plan are implemented, in order that you've done your the main therapy process between sessions.

7. Therapy is not a trip to the Park. Expect you'll feel uncomfortable at the beginning. It is difficult to feel vulnerable and safe enough at once, to state your individual issues and move forward along with your therapist. Hopefully these guidelines can provide a birds-eye view enabling you to obtain the most from your investment in Psychotherapy. If you should be reading this information, you are taking the first faltering step to improving your standard of living and relationships. Small baby steps can cause great accomplishments.