relational modalities – INTEGRA CPD

The Diamond Model of Clarkson’s 5 Modalities of the Therapeutic Relationship (2014)

Michael - Presentations — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 23:00:00 +0000

Whilst psychotherapy integration has been one of the most necessary, creative and productive developments in our field over the last 20 years, 'integrative' is in danger of becoming another meaningless sound-bite. What does our integration include, and what doesn't it? What holds it together? How broad and deep is the integration we are pursuing and therefore capable of offering to our clients? Many therapists quite rightly ask: does it do justice to the integrative principle to cherry-pick a couple of different approaches and call this 'integrative'? Are we not aiming at an integration that includes the strengths and gifts of the whole field, including all the theories and techniques? If this is your aim, or you feel confused or disjointed as an integrative therapist, or you have misgivings about the effectiveness of your integration, this day is for you. Many therapists do not feel sufficiently prepared to hold a robust, broad-spectrum, coherent integrative position. Too often integration is taught whilst disregarding the irreconcilable contradictions between the approaches in terms of underlying paradigms, theories, stances and assumptions. This inevitably leads to a too pragmatic attitude which reduces integration to an eclectic pick'n mix of techniques, with therapists switching between different approaches in ways that are confusing and uncontaining for the client. So how can we access the full wealth of therapeutic ways of working, without becoming everything to all people, diluting our therapeutic stance and losing coherence? Michael has been working on this conundrum for the last 20 years, and developed a formulation which he calls the 'diamond model of the modalities'. Based upon the different modalities of therapeutic relatedness (Clarkson/Stark), it can provide a framework for your own ongoing journey towards integration between the diverse approaches and polarities within the still fragmented psychotherapeutic field.

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Enactment as a Central Principle of Relational Therapy (BACP 2008)

Michael - Presentations — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Relational' is in danger of becoming another buzz-word, and this presentation is an attempt to formulate the substance, the essential principles of the relational paradigm shift. Theory is meant to support and enrich our practice rather than directing and legislating for it, by drawing our attention to what has been right under our noses all along. 'Enactment' is such a phenomenon which has been part of therapy all along, but has only been recognised and defined in the last decades. It is commonplace these days that all counsellors and therapists do indeed 'relate' to their clients and that therapy is indeed a 'relationship'. Beyond this simple given, which can be interpreted through the lens of almost every approach without any modification of its traditional assumptions, relational theory tries to establish a more precise and substantial phenomenology of what happens in a therapeutic relationship (including its dangers, impasses and counter-therapeutic dynamics), and I try to establish a holistic rather than dualistic version, by formulating 'enactment' as a bodymind process.

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Clarkson’s 5 Modalities of the Therapeutic Relationship – extended to 7 (1998)

Michael - Handouts — Mon, 03 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

This is my own version of the extension of 5 modalities to 7, to include 'medical model' relating and archetypal relating (based upon Hillman's 'The Myth of Analysis'). Other therapists have suggested the intercultural level of relating as a 6th modality. This makes some sense (as cross-cultural relatedness is indeed essential), but I prefer to think of socially constructed influences and cultural contexts as operating throughout all the modalities, rather than separating them out into one modality. 'Medical model' relating was excluded from Clarkson's list, as it was implicitly (and in some ways correctly) seen as outside the frame of psychological relating, but it is certainly a kind of relating which clients do expect, and therefore needs to be included. Hillman's archetypal relatedness could be seen as overlapping with Clarkson's transpersonal modality, but for good, but obscure reasons I prefer to keep them distinguished.

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Petruska Clarkson’s ‘Five Modalities of the Therapeutic Relationship’ (1995)

Michael - Handouts — Mon, 02 Oct 1995 23:00:00 +0000

This handout is a simple summary in table form of the modalities of the therapeutic relationship, as initially formulated by Petruska Clarkson in her seminal 1991 paper: ""Clarkson, P (1991) A Multiplicity of Psychotherapeutic Relationships, in British Journal of Psychotherapy, 7: 2"". This was later elaborated in her 1994 book ""The Therapeutic Relationship"". Since then, other people have suggested additional modalities, not all of which make sense (some of these suggestions constitute errors of logical order). The revolutionary idea in this formulation is to distinguish and contrast the various therapeutic approaches not according to their theory and technique (as was traditionally the case), but in terms of the kinship metaphors they involve. In the US a similar idea was put forward by Martha Stark, who wrote about different kinds of therapeutic relatedness (as conceived as different ""Modes of Therapeutic Action"" - see table below). Clarkson's formulation was seminal as it shifted the focus from the therapist's theory and technique (i.e. the two aspects which were assumed - in quasi-scientific terms - to be the twin pillars of a therapist's approach) towards a variety of relational spaces between client and therapist.

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