Tear and Repair: The Use of Therapeutic Rupture as a Tool for Relational Healing

The Relational Psychotherapy movement is a relatively new and integrative theoretical framework for psychotherapy. Considered to be a modern psychodynamic approach, it has roots within the British object relations schools [1] and the American movement of Interpersonal psychoanalysis [2]. At its core, Relational Psychotherapy seeks to understand the client through her or his experience of self with other [3]. When a client discloses meaningful events in therapy, the therapist is not viewing in the client in isolation, but is looking for the larger context of the people and relationship patterns that surround her. Through empathic interactions with the therapist, the client's history of relationship patterns are understood and played out within the therapeutic process itself. Over time, a new way of doing and experiencing connection with others occurs through the therapist-client relationship.