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Discussion 1:
Self-Reflection and Awareness
Exploring the reasons for wanting to be in social work and examining your motives for choosing a career of helping others is very important. Your background, including childhood experiences, may be instrumental in bringing you into the field of social work. Understanding the possible connection and working to resolve any underlying unresolved issues is essential to becoming an effective social worker. While working with a client, you must strive to be objective, but in the end we are all human with past hurtful experiences that can impact our ability to effectively work with clients. While complete objectivity is impossible and not expected, it is necessary to self-reflect and become aware of when a situation or a certain personality type causes you to react in an unprofessional manner. Understanding potential internal and external barriers you and your client bring to the room will assist you in balancing an appropriate empathetic response with proper objectivity.
For this Discussion, review the Geller & Greenberg (2012) article and the program case study for the Petrakis family, and view the corresponding video.
· Post your explanation of the importance of identifying internal and external barriers of the client and social worker.
· Then describe the barriers experienced by Helen and the social work intern.
· Finally, suggest ways the intern could overcome these barriers.
References (use 2 or more)
Gutiérrez, L. M. (1990). Working with women of color: An empowerment perspective. Social Work, 35(2), 149–153.
Geller, S. M., & Greenberg, L. S. (2012). Challenges to therapeutic presence. In Therapeutic presence: A mindful approach to effective therapy (pp. 143–159). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
McTighe, J. P. (2011). Teaching the use of self through the process of clinical supervision. Clinical Social Work Journal, 39(3), 301–307.
Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen, S. M. (Eds.). (2014a). Sessions: case histories. Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].
· The Petrakis Family (pp. 20–22)
Hill, C. E., & Knox, S. (2001). Self-disclosure. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 38(4), 413–417.
Discussion 2: Self-Disclosure
Knowing that clients might react negatively to your work with them may cause anxiety, frustration, and even anger. It is inevitable that you will work with a client who expresses anger or disappointment over working with you. This does happen in the social work field and is to be expected over time. Understanding how you might react to allegations of incompetence or anger over incomplete goals is essential to managing this type of exchange. While a negative interaction may be justified if either person did not fulfill responsibilities, often it is a result of the client’s personal reaction to the situation. The best response is to use these interactions to build the therapeutic bond and to assist clients in learning more about themselves. Stepping back to analyze why the client is reacting and addressing the concern will help you and the client learn from the experience.
For this Discussion, review the program case study for the Petrakis family.
· Post a description of ways, as Helen’s social worker, you might address Helen’s anger and accusations against you.
· How might you feel at that moment, and how would you maintain a professional demeanor?
· Finally, how might you use self-disclosure as a strategy in working with Helen?
References (use 2 or more)
Gutiérrez, L. M. (1990). Working with women of color: An empowerment perspective. Social Work, 35(2), 149–153.
Geller, S. M., & Greenberg, L. S. (2012). Challenges to therapeutic presence. In Therapeutic presence: A mindful approach to effective therapy (pp. 143–159). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
McTighe, J. P. (2011). Teaching the use of self through the process of clinical supervision. Clinical Social Work Journal, 39(3), 301–307.
Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen, S. M. (Eds.). (2014a). Sessions: case histories. Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].
· The Petrakis Family (pp. 20–22)
Hill, C. E., & Knox, S. (2001). Self-disclosure. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 38(4), 413–417.
Petrakis Family Episode 3
Petrakis Family Episode 3
Program Transcript
FEMALE SPEAKER: And you’re sure Alec is stealing from her? Pills. From his
own grandmother.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I can’t call the police. He’s still on probation! Possession.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Have you spoken to him about it?
FEMALE SPEAKER: He denied it. But I found them. He got her oxy prescription
refilled so he could take them himself. How old are you?
FEMALE SPEAKER: Excuse me?
FEMALE SPEAKER: I said, how old are you?
FEMALE SPEAKER: I don’t see what that has to do with anything.
FEMALE SPEAKER: You’re too damn young to be doing this job. That’s it. You
don’t know what you’re doing! None of this would have happened! It was your
bright idea! You’re the one who told me to have him move in with her and take
care of her!
FEMALE SPEAKER: I did tell you to do anything! I only suggested it. And we
talked about it together.
FEMALE SPEAKER: No, no. That’s not true. I followed your advice. You’re going
to have to fix this. You have to do something. I don’t know what else to do. I can’t
call the police. He can’t go back to jail. Awful things will happen to him. I can’t let
that happen. I won’t!
Petrakis Family Episode 3
Additional Content Attribution
MUSIC:
Music by Clean Cuts
Original Art and Photography Provided By:
Brian Kline and Nico Danks
©2013 Laureate Education, Inc. 1
143
8
CHALLENGES TO
THERAPEUTIC PRESENCE
To optimize the moments of kairos (opportunity) in the therapy rela-
tionship, in ourselves, and with our clients, therapists must be aware of and
work through the potential barriers to relational therapeutic presence. A level
of intimacy with the moment is needed for therapists to go deeper through
the levels of therapeutic presence, which can be scary and make one feel vul-
nerable. In particular, it can be more challenging to rely on one’s self and the
deepest strata of one’s being to facilitate a response or choose a technique in
resonance with what is most poignant for the client in the moment than to
rely on a therapy plan or a particular technique. The challenges to engaging
intimately in the moment in a psychotherapeutic encounter can arise from
within the therapist (internal barriers) or from the client, the relationship, or
other demands (external barriers). Although it is helpful to conceptually cat-
egorize challenges as internal or external, even those that emerge externally
(e.g., the client’s anger) are ultimately internal challenges to the therapist to
be aware of and work through.
The challenges we examine in this chapter include internal ones such
as countertransference, trust in the process, and personal barriers (stress, lack
of self-care, appropriate use of energy) as well as external factors such as work-
ing with challenging clients (e.g., clients with dual diagnoses or receiving
If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family.
—Ram Dass
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/13485-008
Therapeutic Presence: A Mindful Approach to Effective Therapy, by S. M. Geller
and L. S. Greenberg
Copyright © 2012 American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.
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end-of-life care, trauma survivors). However, first we invite you to pause briefly
to uncover your own personal obstacles to being present with a client.
PAUSE MOMENT. Stop and notice any obstacles to presence:
� Take a moment to pause from reading and turn your attention
inward. Close your eyes, soften your gaze in front of you, or jot
down some notes.
� Focus briefly on your breath and allow yourself to bring your
awareness to your bodily experience of breathing.
� What are you first aware of as you pause? Notice the busyness of
your mind, judgments, or discomfort in your body that may pre-
vent you from feeling centered or still. Notice any rushed feeling,
as in wanting to get to the next page, the next moment, or the
next task. Notice it without judgment, keeping awareness on your
breath without following the thoughts about what you are expe-
riencing, allowing each breath to take you back to the moment.
� Now reflect about the difficulties in being present with a client.
What kinds of obstacles emerge in session with a client that hijack
your focus or attention? Notice what they are. Then let them go.
� How do you know when you are not present with a client; what
are the clues? How do you bring yourself back to the moment in
session? What is one way you can work on noticing your barrier
to being present and bringing your attention back in session?
INTERNAL CHALLENGES TO THERAPEUTIC PRESENCE
In this section, we explore some of the internal challenges that therapists
can face as they open up to the contact that therapeutic presence entails. Being
fully in the moment with a client requires having a level of self-awareness and
inner health and integration. Presence is not just a passive state but an active
engagement with one’s whole being, which demands a level of engagement
with the other that requires that we take care of ourselves on a personal and
professional level. Even so, we are human beings, and the challenges that can
arise for us include countertransference, tolerance of uncertainty, the role of
stress, and appropriate use of energy.
Countertransference
Countertransference is defined as “the therapist’s internal or external
reactions that are shaped by the therapist’s past or present emotional conflicts
and vulnerabilities” (Gelso & Hayes, 2007, p. 25). Although the notion of
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countertransference may have originated in the psychoanalytic tradition,
the possibility of countertransferential reactions, or feelings in the thera-
pist in relation to clients, can occur in any therapeutic modality. Note the
perspective of Gelso and Hayes (2007):
Countertransference is universal in psychotherapy . . . by virtue of their
humanity, all psychotherapists, no matter how experienced or emotion-
ally healthy, do have unresolved conflicts and vulnerabilities, and that
the relational intimacy and emotional demands of psychotherapy tend to
exploit these conflicts and vulnerabilities, bringing them into play in the
therapeutic work. (p. 133)
We believe that countertransference reactions, such as therapists’ emo-
tional reactivity, are highly possible in present-centered work because thera-
pists are open and in direct emotional, physical, cognitive, spiritual, and
relational contact with their clients as well as present in these domains within
their selves. In the presence process, the therapist is using the self as a sensor
or an indicator. Therapists are taking in the depth of the client’s experience
and accessing and attending to their own internal experience as a key indi-
cator in understanding and responding or offering an intervention from
moment to moment. We also believe that being aware of one’s self and the
other, in the way that therapeutic presence evokes, allows therapists to rec-
ognize countertransference reactions when they do emerge and either work
with them internally to let them go and not act them out or use them in a
positive therapeutic manner to reflect what the client is experiencing or may
be evoking in the other.
No matter how great the intention to clear and manage the therapist’s
own issues outside of session, therapists are human beings, and even resolved
issues could rise to the surface in session. However, the level of self-insight,
self-awareness, and commitment to one’s own growth that cultivating thera-
peutic presence demands, such as attending to one’s own inner experience,
serves both as protection from countertransference and as an antidote to
countertransference reactions. Furthermore, the cultivation and experience
of presence can help therapists to quickly distinguish intense countertrans-
ference reactions from intense emotional reactions that may be therapeuti-
cally useful.
Self-awareness and a continuous attending to one’s internal world are
keys to recognizing and managing countertransference reactions. Gelso and
Hayes (2007) described self-insight as a necessary precondition to connect-
ing the therapist’s experience with the experience of the client. To use the
self as a sensing instrument, “therapists must be able to see themselves, to
understand their fluctuating needs and preferences and shortcomings and
longings” (Gelso & Hayes, 2007, p. 108).
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VanWagoner, Gelso, Hayes, and Diemer (1991) compared therapists
who were perceived as excellent by their peers with general therapists. They
found that master therapists were viewed as having greater self-insight,
empathic ability, anxiety management, and self-integration. Interestingly,
these qualities, which are a part of mastery, are also aspects of therapeutic pres-
ence, such as self-insight, self-integration (grounded and centered), attune-
ment to the other, and ability to manage anxiety. These skills are central to
mastery, as therapists who are perceived as excellent are better able to notice
and manage countertransference reactions before they become problematic or
manifest in therapy and potentially impede the client’s process. Hence, the
practice of presence can also protect against countertransference reactions.
In addition, therapists’ insight, self-awareness, self-care, and psycholog-
ical health as well as their training and professional experience, which are all
a part of cultivating presence, will support the therapist in effectively using his
or her own receptive openness to understand and facilitate the client’s thera-
peutic process toward healing. In fact, openness to one’s own feelings has been
associated with less countertransference behavior (Robbins & Jolkovski,
1987). It is often the therapists who have lost touch with what they are feel-
ing or are unaware of their own experience in the moment who do not notice
what is interfering with their ability to help or be there with their client.
To get out of the way of our client’s therapy, we need to get our own
unresolved issues out of the way. Yet even when it is not possible or we are
taken by surprise by a feeling (e.g., a sense of incompetence or frustration or
anger), we need to develop agility in recognizing the source of that feeling
and moving our awareness back into the moment and back to an open yet
grounded place.
The following clinical vignette demonstrates how the therapist’s self-
awareness helped her to recognize her own sense of detachment and counter-
transference response and recoup her attention when she was struggling in
session with a client:
Jane was discussing the loss of her son through an illness encountered when
he was 8 years old. She was discussing the “deep hole” in her chest from the
hurt and pain she felt at her son’s death. She expressed feeling over-
whelmed by having to cope with everyday tasks, as she could barely “face
each day.” As she spoke, I found myself cognitively responding to her pain
by reassuring her, while my attention felt like it was moving further and
further out of the room. I noticed my clipboard, which I rarely use, in my
hand with my pen writing furtively. At that moment I recognized that the
clipboard was almost acting like a shield to the overwhelming pain she was
experiencing. I brought my attention to my present moment disconnec-
tion and became aware that underneath the emotional distance I felt to
Jane was a feeling of deep sadness and fear of loss. I realized that I had
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created a blockade to that pain. I also felt overwhelmed with the notion
that I could not take away or lessen her pain in any way. With that aware-
ness of my resistance to being present, for fear of being overwhelmed by
sadness and incompetence, I noted and invited my attention back to pres-
ence. I became aware of this vulnerability in me, and imagined putting
these fears on a shelf, with an intention to return to these at a later time. I
was then able to take a breath and invite my attention back to a sense of
grounded presence, where I could feel once again my own inner stability
yet open to a sense of support and the vastness of pain felt by Jane.
In this example, the therapist noted her nonpresent behavior of furiously
writing and her distraction. She was able to quickly attend to her detachment
and underlying pain and fear, notice and regulate her emotions, note these as
something she needs to attend to at a later time, and return her attention to
the moment. The inner dialogue and returning attention to the moment can
be brief if therapists are skilled in their own self-awareness and ability to
understand their emotional experience.
Practice in presence and self-awareness can also help therapists to dis-
cern the source of a countertransference reaction and to work with it effec-
tively. For example, the therapist who is experienced in self-recognition may
feel sleepy in session and discern that it is not fatigue per se but a sense of
disconnect with himself or herself or with the client and hence bring their
attention back to the moment. Another possibility for the source of that
fatigue is the therapist’s resonance with the client’s disconnect from his or her
own experience. Hence, it is a good opportunity to reflect this back, which
would invite the client back to his or her own experience.
Therapists can also use the presence practice of in-the-moment bodily
awareness to attain ease in recognizing the underlying needs that the counter-
transference reactions, in the form of a lack of presence, could be indicating.
For example, anxiousness may reflect a need for a break or a need for stretch-
ing or exercise. Tiredness may be physical fatigue or may result from a lack of
direction or connection in the session. Boredom may mean that the therapist
is burnt out or perhaps that the client is avoiding and speaking about his or
her surface experience. Becoming more aware of and attuned with one’s own
bodily sensations can maximize the intention to be fully and optimally pres-
ent in the room with the client. This self-attunement can also provide a map
for inviting and returning one’s own awareness back to the moment.
Tolerating Uncertainty and Trusting the Process
One key aspect in preparing for therapeutic presence is to bracket
theories, preconceptions, and therapy planning. Bracketing allows our
receptive attunement to the uniqueness of the moment to guide the therapy
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process and allows the right technique or direction to emerge from this
level of openness. However, opening to the moment means opening to the
unknown and having periods in session that may feel entirely uncertain.
Therapists’ discomfort with uncertainty can lead them to respond in a way
that is out of sync with the client. In relational therapies, this may leave the
client feeling not heard or accepted and hence shut down. With manual-based
therapy, such as cognitive–behavioral therapy, this may result in speeding
through required steps without attuning to where the client is in the moment
and hence having less therapeutic impact. Therapists face a similar challenge
with silence. Tolerating the discomfort of silence or of the unknown is integral
to a good therapy process, as it is through uncertainty that one can allow for the
emergence of material or responses that could be important and relevant for the
client. Silence can also allow the client to work internally with what has been
offered through the therapist’s response or intervention, and the therapist’s dis-
comfort with this and filling the silence could actually impede the client’s heal-
ing and learning processes. To be able to trust in the unknown takes practice
and the knowledge that tolerating discomfort can leave space for the emergence
of poignant therapeutic material.
The challenge of trusting in the unknown occurs often near the begin-
ning of a session, when the client begins to delve into his or her experience but
what he or she is feeling or what might be needed is still unclear. Whether ther-
apists are practicing from a relational or manual-based therapy perspective,
there needs to be time for clients to develop comfort and safety in the relation-
ship and hence bring their issues into full awareness. Therapists’ anxiety at this
beginning stage can force a rushed sequence of interventions before their clients
have had time to build trust or before the relationship has had time to develop.
In particular, new students may lean on technique as a way of managing this
anxiety and as a result minimize the therapeutic efficacy that they could bring
to the therapeutic encounter because their interventions are not attuned with
the client. Even with manual-based therapies, for optimal efficacy the therapist
needs to adapt what he or she is doing in relationship to where the client is at
the moment, which in certain moments requires a level of being with and tol-
erating space and the unknown. It can be likened to an artist staring at a blank
page. It is often the blank page that can be most intimidating and make even
the most talented of artists cower. Yet it is through the artistic process that the
artist learns to wait patiently for emerging material, to tolerate the unknown,
so that what needs to take form or the actual technique that should be used can
emerge in resonance with the moment.
It is the same in present-centered psychotherapy, in which we need to
learn to be still and to listen, and perhaps even to tolerate the anxiety about
not knowing how to help this person who is suffering, so that we can really
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listen to the other and to our deepest self and respond or intervene in reso-
nance with the client in the moment. It takes a level of psychological resilience
as well as understanding and trust that something healing can happen by being
deeply present with clients in their suffering. From this unknown transition
space, true healing can occur, as the therapist does not try to rush forward into
an intervention or to fix the pain of the other. Rather, the responses and tech-
niques that emerge from pausing in presence with the other turn out to be most
facilitative for the client’s healing.
To manage anxiety about the unknown, therapists need to develop trust
in the process, that by staying fully present in the moment and in the discom-
fort of the unknown, what is revealed will allow for their responses or inter-
ventions to be in the direction of healing. This comes through experience
with relational therapeutic presence. However, there are some specific tools
to manage that discomfort, such as returning to a focus on the breath, doing
full abdominal breathing, or silently reminding yourself to stay in the present,
to trust in the process, to trust in being in the moment. The therapist can also
have an internal dialogue with himself or herself, including self-soothing or
a gentle reminder to have trust or open fully.
Stress and Multiple Roles
We are in an era in which we are bombarded by demands on our atten-
tion, time, and emotional energy. Computers, faxes, cell phones, landlines,
BlackBerries, e-mails, tweets, Facebook, and other technology-based commu-
nications demand responses with an immediacy that was not expected even
a decade ago. In addition, the multiple roles that many therapists play in their
daily lives in the current reality carry their attention out of the moment and
away from their own experience. The multiple demands in therapists’ lives
and attention are stressful and can make the challenge of being fully present
even greater than it is. The era of traditional roles is gone, and on one level
this means a wonderful gain in equality and diversity in relationships and
career choices, but on another level this has resulted in increased expecta-
tions and demands to fulfill multiple roles.
The first author (S. G.) conducted a stress-reduction workshop for
health care workers, with the intent of facilitating an understanding of the
stress in their lives as well as ways of increasing presence in the workplace.
She asked participants to name the different roles that predominate in their
day-to-day lives. She was struck by the many roles each person described:
health care practitioner, parent, caregiver for aging parents, supervisor, man-
ager, professor, coworker, friend of someone with a terminal illness, caregiver
for in ill sibling, driver for children, single parent, and so on. This is just a
small list of what was expressed in this circle of 15 people. When asked to
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describe the time they spent just pausing, being still, or doing something they
love for themselves, one woman recalled the last time, which was 2 or so years
ago, she went on a walk in a park alone and felt refreshed . . . for that day! It
is no wonder that the benefits from these rare and precious self-nourishing
moments so quickly disappear.
The process of presence, or deepening into each moment, involves daily
time for preparing one’s own self to be in the moment. We can aspire to be
present and live a life in which we daily make a commitment to caring, com-
passion, presence, learning, and practice. However, demands are made on us
constantly by technology, by environmental stresses, and most profoundly by
our multiple roles and the split attention that is created by a busy and stress-
ful life. The subtle (and not-so-subtle) demands on our attention and time
need to be countered by an awareness of the effects of stress and by managing
stress and cultivating in-the-moment attention.
To allow for presence, we need to work to open to moment-to-moment
awareness in our own selves, in our personal relationships, and in our relation-
ship with what is true inside of us. To access that inner steadiness we have to
commit to riding through our own inner terrain with greater ease and assurance,
while being a part of a something larger, whether it be a sense of community or
through spirituality. This can begin with a simple awareness of the multiple
roles we hold as therapists in the 21st century.
PAUSE MOMENT. Take a moment to increase your awareness of the mul-
tiple roles you play:
� Pause, gently lowering your eyes and attending to your breath.
� Reflect on the multiple roles you play or the demands you face
in your life. How many different people are you responsible for
(at work or at home, your children, parents, siblings, friends,
supervisees, administrative staff, colleagues, and of course your
clients)? Take a count of the people who need your regular
attention.
� Reflect on how much time or what percentage of your day or
week is spent in fulfilling those responsibilities as well as in
meeting general daily demands (e.g., answering e-mails, phone
calls, taking care of the house).
� Now note how much time or what percentage of your day or
week goes to fulfilling your own needs or self-nourishment.
� Notice the gap between the amount of time spent in giving to
others and in attending to yourself.
� Take a quiet moment to reflect on how that gap could be
reduced; that is, in what ways can you commit a little more time
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to your own self-care and personal growth or to the care of those
around you?
By becoming aware of the obstacles and stress in our lives, we can turn our
attention to clearing space regularly for presence in life and with clients.
Misunderstood Energy
In moments of heightened connection that can occur at deep levels of
relational presence, therapists can experience sexual feelings, not toward
clients or toward anyone in particular but as a heightened sense of energy
throughout the body. A master therapist interviewed in our qualitative study
(Geller, 2001; see Chapter 2, this volume) described the energy experienced
from presence:
There is an aliveness and it is very contactful . . . there is high excite-
ment and it comes actually right from my genitals right up. I mean it is a
very full, flowing feeling, right, and it’s very interpersonal. I mean they
are all characterized by nothing else is going on. Everything is just
whatever is in the moment.
This energy can be scary, threatening, or misplaced when it is not understood.
The first author (S. G.) recalls when feeling a surge of energy in relation to a
moment of relational contact and presence. She found it confusing and knew
that she also had no physical attraction to this person. She had to sit with that
feeling, curious about both it and her trepidation around it. In speaking to her
supervisor at the time, she discovered that part of it emerged from the flow of
being fully in the moment with this open and vulnerable human being and
an openness within that ensued. The confusing part was that by closing down
this feeling, she knew would have closed down to the client. Yet to be open
to it fully felt inappropriate and wrong. Over time she experienced many
other flow experiences in moments of relational therapeutic presence and
realized it is not just emotional or sensory, it is energetic.
Energy is discussed more often in Eastern traditions or in relation to
somatic practices such as yoga, qigong, or tai chi. In tantric practices, it is under-
stood that energy is a life force that can travel throughout the spine and the body.
Energy can be called sexual when it is directed toward another human being in
a genital-based way. However, therapists who are not familiar or comfortable
with these energy concepts could either shut their feelings down, and therefore
shut down presence, or direct their feelings inappropriately toward the client.
Therapists must have an understanding of energy from different per-
spectives, as well as a healthy relationship with themselves and their profes-
sional ethics, to avoid misusing or becoming distracted by this feeling when
it emerges. It is also important to understand the relational dimensions of
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therapeutic presence and that it is guided by an intention of being with and
for the client, in service of the other’s healing. Being aware of this intent is
essential for therapists to avoid misuse, becoming confused, or shutting down.
While we are distinguishing this energy from a countertransference feel-
ing of attraction to a client, when misunderstood, this energy can lead to
countertransference reactions. The few therapists who have not taken the
steps to understand what is occurring, whether it be a heightened energy that
accompanies presence or a countertransference attraction, develop personal
and intimate relationships with their clients. Some are good therapists from
a clinical perspective, yet they crossed a personal boundary and then termi-
nated therapy too soon, after engaging in sexual and intimate relationships
with their clients. It is not just completely misguided, highly inappropriate,
and an ethical violation, but also an easy line to cross if one is not aware of
the powerful feelings that can accompany relational connection and how to
have appropriate and clear intentions or to access supervision.
Personal practices with energy work, such as qiqong, tai chi, or other
somatic practices, could help in gaining comfort with the experience and the
appropriate use of energy. Supervision is also important when the energetic
responses emerge and become confusing or create the danger of an ethical vio-
lation. The self-awareness that is essential in cultivating presence as well as the
awareness that therapeutic presence is about being in service of the client’s heal-
ing can help therapists to stay open and behave in ethical and appropriate ways.
EXTERNAL CHALLENGES TO THERAPEUTIC PRESENCE
There are certain patients, whether because of their personality styles
or their diagnoses or their overwhelming pain, who can be more challenging
for therapists to be open to and present with. Examples include an angry or
defensive client (especially if fear of confrontation or anger is part of the ther-
apist’s core issue) or a client diagnosed with borderline personality disorder
who may suffer significant inner pain and suicidal ideation or may use the
relationship to manipulate for his or her needs. Certain clients can also hook
therapists into reactivity more than others. Other examples of challenging
clients could include those in tremendous inner or outer pain, such as clients
facing dying and death. Therapists can feel overwhelmed in these situations
because they cannot fix the client and can at most bear witness to the client’s
pain. The challenge in these moments is not only in staying receptive, open,
and present but also in not being so open and enmeshed that we lose our-
selves. A related challenge in these moments is to not create distance or
manipulate the client into shutting down or closing up without becoming
aware of the driving force behind that distancing or feeling of enmeshment.
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Witnessing a client in unbearably deep pain or grief is a challenge for
many therapists, as the pull to fix the pain can be strong, which is often a self-
protective response to witnessing pain or grief. The ultimate acceptance that
being present provides may be healing for many clients, and it is the most
challenging of clients that can benefit the most. In fact, this level of presence
can be a lot more challenging, and perhaps emotionally draining, than being
half present or partially focused. Some examples of presence with challeng-
ing clients are explored next.
Personality Disorders
Dual diagnoses are common, and such clients can be challenging for
many therapists. For example, in working with someone who has sought ther-
apy for depression but who also displays narcissistic tendencies, cultivating a
present attitude and working with one’s self are helpful in not feeling as if you
are drowning in an ocean of protective reaction. On the one hand, narcissism
is a disorder based on a lack of love; on the other hand, narcissism is expressed
through arrogance, anger, and selfishness. This can create difficulties in the
responses of therapists, who can sometimes experience the shame that nar-
cissists create or a reactive and aversive response in the face of arrogant self-
ishness. In the face of such ingrained behavior, therapists can find themselves
feeling angry, defensive, and hopeless.
Narcissism stems in part from parents’ inability to attune to their children
at a time when the child needed that for self-development, and therapists’
attunement is essential in the healing. The tricky balance for the therapist is
between being aware of and nonreactive to the outward expression of arrogance
or the demands these clients make to have their greatness reflected and attun-
ing to the deeper shame or sadness underlying these behaviors yet are highly
protected by the client.
While the technique that therapists use with personality disorders
such as narcissism is valuable, whether it be emotional regulation, increas-
ing interpersonal skills, self-soothing practices, enhancing empathy, or
cognitive–behavioral techniques, what is most valuable is how the thera-
pist is in the room with the client. The technique does not matter if the
client is not met with a warm, accepting, open, and grounded presence in
the therapist. On the flip side, although people with narcissism need the
presence and compassion of the therapist, they are not enough. For exam-
ple, only when the narcissistic mirror is challenged can people with nar-
cissism start to heal. However, to know how and when to challenge these
clients is highly dependent on the therapist’s inner steadiness, compassion,
and attunement to the client in the moment, as the client can initially
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react to the therapist. Hence, there is a greater need for the therapist to
remain open, connected, and grounded yet nonreactive for his or her
approach to be effective.
An example of the acceptance that is necessary to facilitate technique
emerges from dialectical behavior therapy, a behavioral approach developed
by Linehan for patients with borderline personality disorder. With clients
with borderline personality disorder, the internal or affective world of the
therapist is vital in providing the basic acceptance that is needed to make the
behavioral techniques effective. Linehan (1993a) provided an interesting
commentary that speaks to the challenge and necessity of present moment
acceptance:
In relationship acceptance the therapist recognizes, accepts, and vali-
dates both the patient and himself or herself as a therapist with this
patient as well as the quality of the patient–therapist relationship. Each
is accepted as it is in the current moment; this includes an explicit accept-
ance of the stage of therapeutic progress or lack thereof. Relationship
acceptance, like all other acceptance strategies, cannot be approached as
a technique for change—acceptance in order to get past a particular
point. Relationship acceptance requires many things, but most impor-
tantly it requires a willingness to enter into a situation and a life filled
with pain, to suffer along with the patient, and to refrain from manipu-
lating the moment to stop the pain. Many therapists are not prepared for
the pain they will encounter in treating borderline patients, or for the
professional risks, personal doubts, and traumatic moments they will
encounter. The old saying “if you cannot stand the heat, don’t go into
the kitchen” is nowhere more true than in working with suicidal and
borderline patients. (pp. 515–516)
A therapist who is skilled at acceptance and presence has the ability to
be with the deep pain and to provide support from within where the client is
at. Furthermore, the skilled presence therapist can recognize the source of the
anger or manipulation that could be directed at him or her and not react to
or ignore the anger or manipulation.
Gabbard (2001) noted that in working with a patient with borderline
personality disorder, the therapist can be placed in the role of “bad object,”
with anger being directed toward him or her as a projection of the patient’s
abusive parent. An optimal state in the therapist is a state of being even, in
the “middle ground,” experiencing some of that anger inside but maintain-
ing a capacity for empathy and helping the other. Gelso and Hayes (2007)
supported Gabbard in rejecting the traditional psychoanalytical model of
being nonreactive when pulled by a patient’s rage by creating an objective
distance from the client, as this can anger the client further and deepen the
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client’s experience of rejection. Similarly, if the therapist is overinvolved
in the dynamic of blame and defensiveness and reacts angrily or distances
himself or herself, it can overwhelm and damage the therapeutic relation-
ship. This optimal state that Gabbard (2001) described reflects the experi-
ence of therapeutic presence, the state of being deeply connected, in the
moment, authentic, in connection with self, yet expansive in holding both
the emotional authenticity and the intention for healing with and for the
patient.
The therapeutic process with people with personality disorders is often
long and difficult. Although presence allows for deeper attunement, non-
reactivity, and inner steadiness, it is sometimes hard for therapists to sustain
these states during the long therapeutic process. In addition, allowing a sense
of closeness and interpersonal connection with someone with narcissism or
borderline personality disorder can at times create within the therapist a state
of shakiness and lack of confidence in his or her own self. The challenge here
is for therapists to discern their experience of lack of confidence and not
knowing how to help from an inner interpersonal reaction to the client that
can be clinically useful.
The therapist’s own personal practice becomes essential in enabling him
or her to remain open yet hold steady when faced with a client’s potential aver-
sive reactions. A colleague recently discussed how she felt more drained of
energy in relation to her patients with personality disorder when she became
more present with them, instead of just partially attentive, which is how she pre-
viously practiced. She realized that the demands of being open and connected
in some ways were greater and required balancing her schedule and life practices
so that she had healthy ways to take care of herself (e.g., time between sessions,
debriefing, and mindful walking) to release any residual tension. Maintaining
this inner state of openness, grounding, and nonreactivity, a state that is essen-
tial in working with personality disorders, takes a great deal of inner commit-
ment on the part of the therapist. Presence is a significant underlying state that
can help people with personality disorders, yet cultivation and commitment are
essential in sustaining it.
Dying and Death
Being with someone who is dying, or with someone facing a terminal ill-
ness, is one of the greatest challenges for therapists as nothing can be done to
fix or relieve this reality for the other. As therapists we like to see relief, we
like to feel we can help someone navigate through intolerable feelings or sit-
uations into a new life with peace and wholeness. Yet that is not the case
when facing persons who are dying. We cannot help them to live a healthier
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life; at most we can help them to accept their terminal situation and come to
peace with any unfinished business in their lives or to live their final days with
acceptance of the reality of their life and their transition to death.
The most powerful therapeutic stance we can take with people who are
facing death is to be fully present with them, in their fear, their pain, and their
suffering. They need to be listened to and heard, as many people are fearful
of talking about death and so avoid the topic with the dying person. This level
of presence in end-of-life care demands that the therapist open up fully to the
other and the other’s pain, and likely to his or her own reality of dying and
death, and move through the painful suffering and loss that may be experi-
enced without shutting down or feeling overwhelmed. This requires facing
fear and the barriers to opening to generate a level of inner resiliency, and it
requires skill in being open yet grounded and emotionally stable.
The compassionate care movement has brought attention to the impor-
tance and value of presence in end-of-life care (Halifax, 2009). This runs
counter to our Western orientation, which involves fear and avoidance of
death and any discussion of dying. We cannot avoid our own fear of death
when we work with people who are dying. Facing a life-threatening illness
calls us to a place inside that is raw, vulnerable, and real, and if we avoid deal-
ing with that reality then we avoid life, and we avoid offering our pure pres-
ence to the client who is facing death.
Roshi Bernie Glassman, as discussed in Halifax (2009), teaches three
tenets of compassionate care for the dying as helpful when being with some-
one facing death. The first tenet, not knowing, reflects giving up fixed ideas of
ourselves or others and opening to the spontaneity of the beginner’s mind.
The second tenet, bearing witness, reflects being present with the suffering and
joy in the world, without judgment and without attachment to outcome. The
third tenet, compassionate action, reflects a commitment to free others and
ourselves from suffering.
Frank Ostaseski, founder of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco and
the Metta Institute in Sausalito, California, developed five precepts of service
as companions on the journey of accompanying the dying (Ostaseski, n.d.). He
described these as bottomless practices that can be continually explored and
deepened and have to be lived and communicated through action.
� The first precept: Welcome everything. Push away nothing. In wel-
coming everything, we may not like what is arising, but it is not
our work to approve or disapprove, but just to listen deeply. This
is a journey of continuous discovery; we have no idea how it will
turn out, and it takes courage and flexibility.
� The second precept: Bring your whole self to the experience. In the
process of healing others and ourselves, we open to both our joy
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and our fear. It is not our expertise, but rather the exploration
of our own suffering that enables us to be of real assistance. This
precept reflects the importance of the exploration of our own
inner life in enabling us to be empathic and respond compas-
sionately to the other person.
� The third precept: Don’t wait. This precept calls for patience and
an honoring of present-moment experience, rather than wait-
ing for death. When we wait for the moment of death, we miss
so many moments of living. This allows for the awareness of the
precarious nature of this life to reveal what is most important,
that calls us to enter fully.
� The fourth precept: Find a place of rest in the middle of things. Rest
is often something people look forward to that arrives when we
are at the end of the day or going on holiday. We imagine that
we can only find rest by changing the conditions of our life. But
it is possible to discover rest right in the middle of chaos and dif-
ficult emotions. This rest reflects the experience of presence,
which is always accessible to us and emerges from bringing our
full attention, without distraction, to this moment.
� The fifth precept: Cultivate don’t-know mind. This describes cul-
tivating an open and receptive mind that is not limited by agen-
das, roles, or expectations. From this open receptivity we allow
the situation itself and the relationship with the other, in the
moment, to inform our actions. This aspect of presence involves
listening openly to the other, as well as listening to our own
inner voice, sensing and trusting our intuition. We learn to see,
feel, and look with fresh eyes.
Glassman’s three tenets and Ostaseski’s five precepts reflect the whole
experience of therapeutic presence, from the need to be receptive and open
to the unknown and to others to be fully present and nonjudgmental to what
is being expressed or experienced without attachment to outcome, to the
need to be present with and for the client with the intention to be with the
other in a way that is healing. This offering of presence and compassion
requires therapists to look deeply at their own attitudes and fears in relation
to illness and death as well as to recognize the cultural and family attitudes
that they may have internalized, and to open fully to the multiple dimensions
of the experience of dying and death. To face and move through their own
potential fear of death and to have or strengthen a level of inner resiliency
and stability require deep inner work on the part of therapists, so they can
offer the gift of being present and bearing witness to the client’s suffering,
without shutting down, holding back, or becoming overwhelmed.
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Trauma
Riding the waves of uncertainty is acutely challenging when the client
is expressing or reexperiencing trauma. In particular, learning the details of
rape or abuse in a client’s childhood or seeing and hearing the effect of a sex-
ual or physical violation on a child or adolescent is heartbreaking. Yet the
reality is equally hopeful because that person has made it to the therapist’s
office. There is nothing more profoundly healing than offering a traumatized
child, adolescent, or adult your complete self, with the capacity not only to
hear and feel but also to stay steady and hold that pain.
The presence of the therapist allows the trauma survivor to feel under-
stood and supported, as trauma survivors often feel alone in their suffering and
believe that no one can understand what they may be experiencing. A trauma
survivor could feel that even the therapist, not having experienced the trauma
that he or she went through, is outside of the wall that the survivor has cre-
ated for protection and survival. Hence, therapists’ presence may include an
acknowledgment of the truth of not having the shared experience of trauma,
but a willingness to be there, to listen, and to take in the experience with open-
ness, compassion, and a capacity for understanding.
The risks are complex for a therapist who has not experienced the trauma
of the survivor (or survivors, as it could be a community trauma or disaster)
and is trying to be as present as possible. The resonance with feeling the tragic
experience can create in the therapist either an urge to rescue and protect the
client from further distress or a deep emotional upset or horror in knowing too
much about what the survivor has experienced (Lanyado, 2004). Exposure to
the details of the trauma may create an internal defense to protect one’s self
from the effects of witnessing the horrific through the verbal account of the
event. Even the most present and skilled therapists are not immune to this
response in the face of trauma. Hence the agility to recognize this state for
what it is (a mirror response or defensive reaction) and to work with it through
inner recognition, and perhaps a calming of one’s own anxiety, is central to
remaining or returning to being fully present with the client.
Nothing is more potentially challenging to the strata of one’s being than
to witness the sheer expression of pain associated with trauma. Furthermore,
there is an occupational hazard of becoming overwhelmed, depressed, defen-
sive, and burnt out in the face of trying to help people process or cope with
trauma (Lanyado, 2004). However, if therapists begin to feel overwhelmed
and lose hope in the face of trauma, they are more inclined to attempt to fix,
distance themselves from, or overidentify with the client’s experience, which
can result in a failure in the ability to be present and helpful, and the client
will be at risk of not feeling safe and likely shutting down. In working with
trauma, it is essential that “therapists ensure that they do not consciously
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overwork and that they do make sure that their leisure time really replenishes
their emotional reserve” (Lanyado, 2004, p. 13).
Working with trauma survivors, and the constant witnessing and fully
being there with some of the horrific experiences clients retell and reexperi-
ence, can create a shutting down or vicarious traumatization in therapists if they
are not taking care of their needs and finding a release for that which is carried
in their own emotional bodies after session. Here the danger of not being pres-
ent as a way to self-protect is higher. This is where peer supervision, self-care,
and time after session or the workday are imperative. Some therapists find it
helpful to talk to a colleague, meditate, play music, engage in artistic or creative
activities, walk or exercise, or have some time at the end of the day to decom-
press by walking home from the office or going to a park or somewhere else
calm. Cultivating and sustaining a nonreactive yet open state, which is essen-
tial in working with challenging clients, is equally important for therapists in
training as well as expert therapists.
CONCLUSION
Although the potential for healing with therapeutic presence is great,
the challenges are equally great. Being fully open and engaged with the client
brings internal challenges such as countransference reactions and managing
busyness, multiple roles, and stress, as well as external challenges such as meet-
ing or being with difficult clients or clients experiencing great pain, trauma, or
loss. This speaks to the increased requirement for therapists to take care of
their own internal worlds and mental health, cultivate and maintain self-
awareness, as well as leave time during the day and between sessions to release
and be connected to their own needs for self-care and relation to release
emotional residue and to minimize compassion fatigue.
Next we look at the neurobiological correlates of presence and how
shifting one’s own biology in the direction of calm and openness can help to
cultivate presence and work through the challenges that accompany presence.
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