Sustaining and Utilizing a Relationship

Abstract

In the previous chapter we noted that when we think in terms of human ecology we are trying to encompass the totality of relations between people and their environments, internal and external. Our central theme throughout this chapter will be that ecosystem realities continue as part of the interaction between the individuals involved in sustaining and using a therapeutic relationship. The therapist and the client form a new, somewhat unique ecosystem as the basis for having a constructive therapeutic exchange. Nevertheless, their new relationship will exist in and embody the context of their own ethnic ecosystems and the relationship between those systems. For that reason we begin this chapter by sketching out the general nature of our involvement in sustaining and using relationships in our lives quite independently of the therapeutic context.