Psychology Professionals
5 Things Therapists Should Know about Their Offices
1. The appearance, layout, and everything they put in their offices, has an
effect on the therapeutic process.
2. A messy consultory can make a client anxious.
3. A potential power differential is communicated by the seating types,
displayed diplomas, awards, artwork, etc.
4. An office designed primarily with the practitioner in mind may neglect
considering the impact of the office--including its layout and contents--on clients.
5. Your own unconscious material can be transparent
to your clients through your office.
You Can Do Better Work with Your Client
 Regardless of the method of psychotherapy you use, you can enlist your office in the process. You may be in supervision, your own therapy, attending workshops or classes in an effort to do better and better work with your clients. Learning the role your space plays in the therapeutic gives you a tool that will enhance your efforts to do better work with your clients.
A New Means of Becoming Self-Aware
You can become aware to your office so that you will be able to see many of the things you were not conscious of. Because we think of our offices as functional places we are not always aware of their psychological effect on us and our patients. Exploring the relationships/transference you have to the contents of your office is like looking in a psychological mirror.
If the Office Is Psychologically Significant, Why Don’t We Know It?
A review of the psychological literature shows that the ‘office’ has been virtually ignored and the therapeutic relationship emphasized, and so therapists are not taught about the ‘office’ per se. The office is an extension of the therapist and is therefore part of the therapeutic relationship. Meeting in a posh private office has a different effect on a client than a session held in a bare-bones agency setting. Likewise, meeting in the client’s home, a quiet outdoor place, or any area other than the therapist’s office can effect what is expressed, felt or imagined by the client and the therapist.
Putting Your Office on the Couch
 Katherine Grace Morris, PhD, has been working with psychotherapists for years with their offices. She has a protocol that works organically with the practitioner to gently bring the deeper messages in the office, the therapist can not see by him or herself, to conscious awareness. Thereafter decisions can be made about them. The office can become a therapist’s on-site ‘supervisor’. The consequences of a ‘bad’ office for the practitioner can be fractured focus, indecision, a dread of being in their office, depression, feeling professionally unfulfilled, or lack of energy or creativity. A ‘bad’ office can contribute to low referrals, contribute to client termination or lack of retention, create or add to a negative transference, diminish client confidence, or constellate unexplored negative feelings in the client.
Therapist Success Stories
Dr. Judy's office looked like a lovely living room from her vantage point. But what she discovered in working with me, was that the client was seeing a very different point of view--one that was probably making them anxious and triggering them in a negative way that she was not aware of until she experienced the Morris Approach.
Katherine Grace Morris's work on my office made me realize that "I am better grounded and can do better work when my office supports me," Dr. Judy T. of Bethesda, MD.
Gerry Russo, LCSW, was going to move from one midtown Manhattan office to another and wanted advice on which office to select and on how to set up the office once she selected it.
We reviewed many aspects of the various offices she had to choose from. While the one I recommended cost quite a bit more, she took it. She writes, “The thing I was most taken by was the fact that the art I had on the walls could have such a powerful impact; that I needed to know what message I wanted to convey with the art that was up.
“I made the changes first because I trust Katherine; second, the changes weren't so difficult to make that it would be any kind of real imposition or stress, either financially, emotionally or physically.
“The change of office is the one thing I can definitely comment on. I was in the space Katherine recommended for two years and it was bright and open and people consistently commented on the warmth and comfort they felt in the room. I was able to sublet it easily, so it cost me less money than the cheaper office would have.
 “I have since given up the space, and am sharing an office with a colleague (actually in the space I was originally going to rent, but Katherine told me not to), and the difference is palpable. There isn't as much light, the space feels cramped and dark, partly because of the space itself and partly because of the way it is furnished and the colors used.
All my old clients have moved with me and are invested in their therapy, but it has been difficult keeping new clients. I don't know that it is necessarily because of the space, but that has never been as big a problem as it seems to be now.” Gerry Russo, LCSW, New York, New York
Contact Dr. Katherine Grace Morris for an office consultation. |