The I-Thou Relationship in the Age of Telehealth By Matthew Martin, LPC & Eric Cowan, PsyD on 9/4/20 - 11:59 AM

Clinicians have long understood the therapeutic relationship to be the most powerful meta-intervention supporting client change and transformation. As Carl Rogers observed, the prerequisite for therapeutic change is that the client and therapist be in psychological contact. But when a computer mediates between counselor and client, how much does that impair this contact and obstruct the potential for therapeutic movement? In a world increasingly reliant upon telehealth services, we are challenged to preserve the authenticity of meeting if we hope to effectively combat the challenges to real connection inherent in technology-mediated relationships. Luckily for us, philosopher Martin Buber dedicated his entire life to uncovering the invisible potential embedded in relationships, and much of what he discovered can help us to remedy some of these relational complications in the age of telehealth.

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Martin Buber believed that we have the capacity to relate to each other in two distinct ways. When we actively and authentically engage each other in the here and now, Buber believed that we open up to ourselves and orient towards another as a “Thou,” which he characterized by mutuality, directness, presentness, intensity, and ineffability. He saw the I-Thou relationship as a bold leap into the experience of the other, while simultaneously being transparent, present and accessible to one’s own experience. I-Thou encounters in therapy occur when we are able to truly “show up” for our clients, which then affords them the possibility of embodying themselves. Martin Buber designated this meeting between I and Thou as the most important aspect of human experience. He viewed our capacity to confirm and be confirmed in our uniqueness by others as the source of growth and transformation that structures the foundation of our shared humanity.

However, to confirm another as a Thou is no simple task. We must be willing to embody the fullness of our own experience and release ourselves to the ambiguity of the moment if we are to open up the space for an I-Thou relationship. Instead, we tend to slip into seeing the person as an “It.” When we do this, the other person is experienced as an object to be influenced or used, or a means to an end. The world of I-It can be coherent and ordered, even efficient, but inevitably lacks the essential elements of human connection and wholeness that characterize the I-Thou encounter. When an extreme I-It attitude becomes embedded in cultural patterns and human interactions, the result is greater objectification of others, exploitation of persons and resources, and forms of prejudice that obscure the common humanity that unites us.

Buber emphasized the importance of holding a balance between these two necessary poles of existence. However, in the current age of telehealth, the computer itself fundamentally alters the medium through which an I-Thou meeting can emerge and tips the scale towards an I-It interaction. As technology pulls interactions toward I-It orientations, we increase the risk that our clients will miss the authentic growth and transformation that blossoms out of a real meeting between client and therapist. The process of trusting another person with one’s vulnerabilities and sharing a lived-in experience held and expressed through one’s body is much more dimensional than two talking heads communicating through a screen with words and ideas only. We must resist the danger inherent in telehealth, so the therapeutic encounter does not become abstracted, experience-distant, and limited to language spoken from the neck up.

I feel the gravitational pull towards I-It orientations when I find myself leaning into the comfort of familiar habits while facing a client on my computer screen. The presence of the technology tends to pull me into thinking about all the relevant interventions I could implement with my client in order to help them remove their suffering. This orientation is useful at times; however, it also encourages a lack of presence in the teletherapy session that bends attention away from the invisible elements of therapy that foster human connection and growth. Instead, therapy becomes centered on the visible elements of practicality that can distract client and therapist from the deeper therapeutic aim. However, I’ve noticed that I can counter this natural bending of attention by remaining centered in my body and trusting my intuition to guide me. Technology inherently obstructs the therapeutic relationship, but it does not destroy its potential. There still exists an invisible bond that can survive the medium of pixels, a power that can be actualized if we can trust our intuition to guide us towards opening up spaces for its potency. To do this, our presence must remain oriented towards the possibility of an I-Thou encounter.

However, I find that this new technology-centered therapeutic process can be much more draining than in-person therapy because of the extra effort needed to attend to elements that would otherwise be naturally apparent and expressed. The lack of ease in reciprocity in engagement is also dually draining for the therapist, as the usual “beats” of body-to-body communication are absent. I must remember to replenish myself with moments of deep connection and meaningful engagement outside of the therapy room if I am to sustain spaces for I-Thou encounters during the age of telehealth. Though the demand for therapists to pull clients into real participation requires us to hold an age-old responsibility in a new and complicated way, the taking up of that responsibility has the power to foster a type of healing that extends far beyond the therapy room. As Martin Buber once said, “In spite of all similarities, every living situation has, like a newborn child, a new face that has never been before and will never come again. It demands of you a reaction that cannot be prepared beforehand. It demands nothing of what is past. It demands presence, responsibility; it demands you.”

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Part 2 will continue the conversation on how Martin Buber’s philosophy can help to remedy some of the relational complications in the age of telehealth, while expanding his concepts to include challenges from a client’s perspective, personal examples of my struggle to remain faithful to the I-Thou relationship, and the broader sociocultural implications of technology-mediated relationships.




File under: The Art of Psychotherapy, Therapy & Technology, Online Therapy