The Healing Relationship
Dr. David Drier
Independent Medical Examinations and Peer Reviews | Expert Medical Witness | Medical Audits and Impairment Rating
The Healing Relationship
Humans are designed to empathize with one another. As small children, unable to regulate ourselves fully, we depend entirely on our parents for their ability to intuit and understand what we need, to empathize with our needs, and to help us to meet our needs. In fact, as infants, it is instinctive to look into the eyes of our mothers, making the bond and attachment which will, to the extent it is intact, power us through our lives and our long-term needs. The ability of our parents to be “in tune” with us helps us to regulate, not only our material needs, like food and sleep, but to regulate our emotional needs: being seen, understood and known as our selves.
In any relationship, the brains of two people can co-regulate each others’ systems. Along with the initial attachment we experience with our parents, this fact brings up two very valuable possibilities. The first is that in any relationship, we may experience empathy, understanding and “being seen, heard and known” as our selves, which helps us to regulate our physical and emotional system, and that of the person we are with. Anyone who has been in love, or sat with a friend who listened as we vented a particular problem we were having at the time knows this first hand. We calm down (or, in the case of lovers, speed up!), our heart rate slows, as does our breathing pattern, and we relax, and become more expansive and receptive to experience and feeling, without panic. In this way, friendships and loves are very healing.
Second, this healing effect can occur, with a lover, friend or therapist, as a replication of our initial parental attachment, or lack thereof, such that deep emotional healing can occur. This is why an effective therapist can take advantage of the therapeutic relationship, and use empathy and loving presence, an open, non-judgmental attitude, to have a client feel seen, heard and understood. This attitude of non-judging witness can heal a client’s incomplete early attachment issues with a parent, and open the client up to new levels of safety, fearlessness and self-acceptance.