Neutrality of counseling

Neutrality is a kind of internal logic of the therapist, not that he cannot do or guide anything. Modern psychotherapy pays more attention to the present, to the client-client relationship, and to the future, so the interaction between the client and the therapist is often analyzed in time to provide some guidance for the future, thus facilitating the client’s change. Therefore, therapists often use their own reverse “empathy”, using good and bad feelings and perceived feelings to disturb the client. The classic approach is to perceive a value implicit in your behavior or situation and believe that your suffering stems from your inappropriate perception, and the therapist will challenge or confront you with that perception, or cushion it with an opposing perception, or polarize you to see the absurdity of the perception, regardless of whether it is neutral or not. So what is neutrality? Neutrality is a professional attitude of psychotherapists. Neutrality has three dimensions: first, value neutrality, not telling you what idea is good, but what idea is more effective for you, avoiding value judgments. The second is therapeutic neutrality, not letting the therapist’s personal likes and dislikes, beliefs, gender, aesthetics, or preferences influence the relationship with the visitor. The therapist has to be honest with himself or herself that these things can interfere with him or her and keep the third eye alert to his or her own problems brought into the counseling situation. Third is the neutrality of change, not assuming how the client can change for the better, but giving the client the power to change, admitting that he or she is ignorant, and going with the flow of the client. The smart thing to do is to ask more questions to help open the client’s mind and vision, and answer less, because any answer may form a kind of misinformation to the client. Of course, for some people with low literacy, low life situation and weak self-awareness, true neutrality again happens to be not neutral, and in order to benefit the client, the therapist has to give up the professional position and give some practical guidance to the client. So, the neutrality of the counseling process is complicated. If you feel that the doctor’s neutrality is problematic, you’d better tell him this feeling so that your counseling relationship can develop in a healthy way in interaction and trust, and ultimately it is you who will benefit! In fact, sometimes the psychiatrist’s lack of neutrality is the result of the doctor’s own empathy; he may be paying too much attention to you or have other expectations of you. Your honesty in telling him about his non-neutrality can help him become aware of himself, and if the doctor gets angry about it, affecting your therapeutic relationship, or insists on it, not converging slightly because of your antipathy, but instead saying that it is your negative empathy, impedance, defenses and so on, don’t believe him so much, it is a deliberate attempt to break down and destroy your inner defenses and value system, to make you submissive and dependent on him. Firing him is a wise choice for you. The neutrality of the counseling process is complicated. If you feel that the doctor’s neutrality is problematic, it is best to tell him this feeling so that your counseling relationship can develop virtuously in interaction and trust.