01/04/2023
After eighteen years sitting in therapy rooms with clients, there are many things I know to be true. But when I was recently asked to reflect on what was the most important thing I’ve learned from my work, I found it difficult to distill my experience down to one fundamental truth. I’ve moved so far from my early days in counselling when everything I did in the room was shaped by my university faculty’s unwavering dedication to the “gold standard” of cognitive behaviour therapy and adherence to a manualised treatment protocol. I’ve realised that building “therapeutic rapport” is far more than just holding unconditional positive regard for the client and being generally likeable oneself – that therapy is primarily a relational process that happens between the therapist and the client, a fragile thread between them that is strengthened through mutual trust and commitment to become a solid foundation for healing and growth. Therapy can never work without this. So this is my fundamental truth: You can’t heal, if you don’t connect.
Johann Hari wrote eloquently about the need for connection is his 2018 book exploring the causes of depression. He identified disconnection in nine domains as contributing; disconnection from meaningful work, from others, from meaningful values, from childhood trauma, from status and respect, and from the natural world. I picture healing as growth along all of these interconnected domains, like energy moving through a network of neurons to light up the nodes and form a system that supports thriving and wellbeing.
This image was in my mind as I considered a new business name as I prepared to take a step back into private practice after seven years in the public service. I pictured the way some types of grasses send shoots out laterally from their centre, just beneath the surface of the earth, which form the foundation for new vertical shoots of growth. These lateral shoots, called rhizomes, reaching out and connecting, seemed to me to be a perfect analogy for my foundational truth.
Welcome to Rhize Wellness – a place for connection and growth.
Phone 1800 466 162 for appointments, or DM me for more information.
