1. First few sessions felt “right.”
This has been shown to correlate strongly with overall success of therapy.
2. Therapist Understands Accurately
Empathy isn’t just being nice. It is a natural phenomenon that happens when the patient is able to let therapist into his/her personal world and feelings, and the therapist actually “gets it.” Highly researched, and of key importance.
3. Therapist Warmth
Therapist warmth along with accurate empathy and realness are the factors first identified by Carl Rogers and confirmed through much research to be correlated with therapetuic success.
4. Therapist Realness
Humans are very sensitive to others being “fake.” When detected, this creates a barrier to any real connection and prevents empathy from working.
5. Helps me feel like taking risks.
Almost all change processes involve taking emotional risks. It takes a unique combination of connection, safety and some “pushiness” to motivate us to do this.