Read the case study and answer the five questions that follow:
Nikita and Ritika are twins. Nikita is intelligent, friendly and popular among her friends. Ritika is shy, withdrawn and feels inferior to her sister. As a child, she felt her parents neglected her and was deeply hurt when they made comparisons. As she grew, these feelings of rejection were reinforced when teachers made statements like, "Look how well Nikita is doing! Why can't you be like her?" Ritika's feelings of rejection only strengthened with time. With the passage of time, Ritika was convinced that she is not good enough and would always be a failure in life.
Which of the following is True about the therapeutic relationship?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Strict confidentiality must be maintained
Option (1) the therapeutic relationship is life long — Incorrect. The relationship is neither a passing acquaintance nor a permanent and lasting one. Its limited duration is one of its two components: it lasts only until the client is able to deal with her/his problems and take control of her/his life.
Option (2) Strict confidentiality must be maintained — Correct. The therapeutic alliance requires that the therapist keeps strict confidentiality of the experiences, events, feelings or thoughts disclosed by the client and never exploits the client’s trust. Only then can the client open up fully.
Option (3) the therapist must be sympathetic to the client — Incorrect. The therapist needs empathy, not sympathy. In sympathy one feels compassion and pity for the sufferer but cannot feel like the other person; in empathy one understands things from the client’s point of view, as if in the client’s shoes. Empathy turns the relationship into a healing one.
Option (4) It is not a relationship based on trust — Incorrect. The opposite is true: it is a trusting and confiding relationship. The high level of trust lets the client unburden herself/himself and confide personal problems to the therapist.
NCERT (2025-26): “Therapeutic Relationship … The special relationship between the client and the therapist is known as the therapeutic relationship or alliance. It is neither a passing acquaintance, nor a permanent and lasting relationship.…” “…This relationship has several unique properties. It is a trusting and confiding relationship.…” “…The therapist has empathy for the client. Empathy is different from sympathy and intellectual understanding of another person’s situation. In sympathy, one has compassion and pity towards the suffering of another but is not able to feel like the other person. Intellectual understanding is cold in the sense that the person is unable to feel like the other person and does not feel sympathy either. On the other hand, empathy is present when one is able to understand the plight of another person, and feel like the other person. It means understanding things from the other person’s perspective, i.e. putting oneself in the other person’s shoes. Empathy enriches the therapeutic relationship and transforms it into a healing relationship.…” “…The therapeutic alliance also requires that the therapist must keep strict confidentiality of the experiences, events, feelings or thoughts disclosed by the client. The therapist must not exploit the trust and the confidence of the client in anyway. Finally, it is a professional relationship, and must remain so.…” |