This is part of the series The Therapeutic Relationship. You can find Before the Healing Begins, The Healing Space Between Two People and Establishing Expectations & Rapport with A Therapist.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that we would explore the quiet magic that unfolds between therapist and client. The therapeutic relationship lies at the heart of meaningful change in therapy. Often called the therapeutic alliance, this relationship can act like a mirror — gently reflecting back our emotions, patterns, and unspoken truths with empathy and care. In this post, I explore how being met with compassion, authenticity, and understanding within the therapy room helped reshape how I saw myself and began a process of healing from within.
The Therapeutic Alliance
My list of requirements for a good therapist included empathy, compassion, strong listening skills, a non-judgemental space in which trust could develop, someone I felt comfortable with, and someone with a sense of humour. I had learned at college that these qualities are the hallmarks of effective therapy.
While it can be helpful to “shop around” initially, what matters most is finding someone with whom you can develop a genuine therapeutic alliance — a working relationship grounded in trust and mutual engagement.
Why Is the Therapeutic Alliance Like a Mirror That Mends the Soul?
For therapy to work, the client must want the process, and the therapist must want to help. At its heart, therapy is a person-to-person relationship — unique, like any meaningful relationship in life. Connection cannot be forced or fabricated; it either develops or it doesn’t.
The healing power is not really magic, but rather the quality of the therapeutic relationship itself. The therapist offers the conditions for change: positive regard, non-possessive warmth, congruence, and genuineness. As I shared my pain, Michael listened with empathy and reflected back what he perceived — not only my emotions, but his understanding of them. At times, he also reflected his own responses, when appropriate.
In this way, the working alliance became a joining of our energies — that was the “magic.” He supported me through painful work, and this support became life-changing. The reflections he offered acted like a mirror, revealing a new way of seeing myself and my experiences. Over time, trust deepened through his consistency and presence.
Trust, Strength, and Mutual Reflection
An essential part of the therapeutic alliance is the gradual building of trust. I sensed that Michael could tolerate my resistance and push-back, and I valued that. It showed me that he was strong enough to hold whatever I brought into the room. That strength allowed me to feel safe.
Alongside trust, shared goals and tasks emerged naturally. Developing an alliance requires authenticity, attentiveness, and positivity. As I observed these qualities in Michael, I began to emulate them myself. In this sense, mirroring happened both ways.
Moving Beyond the Past
One important insight I gained through therapy is that healing is not about blaming one’s parents or circumstances. While it is necessary to acknowledge trauma and work through the feelings it evokes, we are ultimately responsible for how we respond to our experiences. We can remain stuck in the past, or we can choose to take steps toward healing and growth.
Healing leads toward love and freedom; remaining entrenched in the past can lead to victimhood. Through the working alliance, I learned that my task was to find healthier ways to heal — through honesty, forgiveness, love, making conscious choices, setting boundaries, finding my voice, and learning to stand up for myself.
Michael helped me scratch through the surface and look beneath layers of pain and trauma to uncover what was valuable and life-giving. Through his mirroring, I learned to show compassion toward myself. For me, this therapeutic relationship felt like a form of kinship — not intimacy in the personal sense, but a nurturing, relational presence. There was both subjective altruism — a genuine concern for my wellbeing — and objective capacity. Together, these qualities created a deeply constructive healing space.
Looking Ahead
As this relationship deepened, I began to notice something subtle but important: the alliance itself needed tending, reflection, and clarity. Trust did not simply happen — it was built through conversations about expectations, boundaries, and mutual understanding. In the next post, Re-establishing Connection and Rapport with My Therapist After a Rupture, I will reflect on how these conversations shaped the safety of the work and mended the groundwork for everything that followed.
In future posts, I will explore how to assess the strength of the therapeutic relationship; what I did when the relationship ruptured; and my own task in finding creative ways to heal — including art-making and visual journaling.
Take Heart
Morag Noffke 