Relationship Building Strategies
A strong therapeutic relationship fosters trust, understanding, and better engagement and outcomes in care. This section provides culturally responsive strategies that can be applied to all youth, regardless of clinical presentation, to develop a trusting relationship. We also provide tips tailored for youth with anxiety or OCD. The following strategies are rooted in cultural humility – the active, continuous process of practicing self-awareness, taking an open, curious stance, and empowering and advocating for clients.
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Note: Throughout these strategies, we provide sample language. However, your exact words are not as important as having these conversations. With practice, you will find the language that works best for you and your clients.
Self-Reflection Strategies
Clinicians can develop more authentic relationships with their clients when they engage in their own self-reflection. It can be difficult to acknowledge your privileges, experiences of oppression, and biases, but remember, we all have them! Recognizing these aspects of your identity can help you manage them and engage more authentically with your clients. In addition to personal self-reflection, these discussions ideally occur during supervision or peer consultation groups.
For more information on self disclosure, see our Self Disclosure Guide.
Engagement and Empowerment Strategies
Empower the client and family. Power dynamics exist within the therapeutic relationship, whether we want them to or not, due to the role of the clinician as the expert. These power dynamics are affected by the client and clinician’s social identities and their relative experiences of power and privilege. Because these dynamics cannot be erased, it is important that you are aware of them and utilize strategies to create a therapeutic space that fosters trust, transparency, collaboration, and empowerment.
Strategies for Managing Challenges within the Therapeutic Relationship
Practicing cultural humility and developing a strong therapeutic relationship is an ongoing process. You will make mistakes — we all do. The only way to improve is to practice. Just like we support our clients in approaching anxiety provoking situations, we too need to experience discomfort to learn and grow alongside our clients.