1. Interpersonal Dynamics in the Therapeutic Relationship: An Introduction

Last updated on 22 Oct 2025

What actually is a projection? What is transference? And why should we as bodyworkers be familiar with such dynamics?

That's what this article is about.

The Topic: Interpersonal Dynamics

The topic of this short article series is interpersonal dynamics—that is, roughly speaking: The patterns that can run between us as people that are not helpful.

Or rather: That keep us trapped in old behaviors, ways of thinking, and ways of proceeding.

This Is Normal

Such interpersonal dynamics are always running, all the time, everywhere. It's totally normal.

The Problem in Therapeutic Work

The problem when we work as bodyworkers, coaches, therapists is that these normal patterns are extremely obstructive to healing, transformations, and similar processes.

That's why it's so important that we as people, when we work together—in bodywork, coaching, therapy—try to build a therapeutic relationship together that is based as little as possible on these old behavioral patterns.

The Goal: The Therapeutic Relationship

This means: One of the very fundamental goals of every therapeutic relationship is building a relationship in which we, in the here and now as adults together—and I apologize for the strange font, my program doesn't normally do that—can work together on something to be able to make positive steps forward together for the client, the protagonist.

Expressed Pictorially

Expressed pictorially, this means something like: A very fundamental aspect of working together is figuring out: What is the therapeutic relationship? The basis on which we work?

And that was our entire last video, where we engaged with this therapeutic relationship.

Expressed Differently: Resonance

Expressed a bit differently, this means: When we are with each other in a good relationship, a good therapeutic relationship, the hope we have is that together we are in resonance.

What Is Resonance?

Resonance means: I am me, you are you—and we feel and sense each other.

For the Practitioner

Expressed for me as a practitioner, this means: I am in resonance with you when I, in my own experience, in my own awareness, notice what it's like right now to be you.

Because I sense, feel what's happening there—and I can use all of that as information, my perception as information.

For the Client

The same applies of course also for clients who are in contact with me as me—instead of, for example, with old object relations—exactly what that means, we'll look at more closely today—from their past.

Transferred to Perception

The same can also be transferred to perception:

When we have a good therapeutic relationship:

I perceive you
You perceive me
And we perceive each other as we are right now here

The Example from the Client's Perspective

The example from the perspective of the client would be:

"I perceive you as an actually supportive person who wants to accompany me on my path, on my journey."

Instead of: Transferring old experiences that I've had, for example, with other men or other women, onto you and saying: "This is very dangerous."

I perceive you as you actually meet me.

The Same Applies to Therapists

The same applies of course also to us as therapists: That we don't transfer experiences from our past—for example, from people with long hair or with beards—onto our clients.

And that we don't do that—and that we're instead actually in present perception.

What Are Interpersonal Dynamics?

If you now transfer that back to interpersonal dynamics, then an interpersonal dynamic is what interrupts this natural exchange, the natural resonance, the natural perception.

How They Interrupt

And thus interrupts that old psychological, often unconscious material flows into our relationship here and now—and thereby distorts it, twists it, and makes many things much more difficult.

Why Are They Not Helpful?

As you can perhaps imagine, this is not particularly helpful.

Being stuck in these interpersonal dynamics is not helpful. Namely:

1. Not Helpful for Clients

Not helpful for clients, who often repeat old patterns, old experiences and get stuck in them.

The Consequences

Who cannot have new experiences because the old things they've already experienced keep proving true again and again—even if the other person is perhaps offering me a new relationship right now, which I can't even perceive because I'm looking through my pattern.

And where things often become extremely exhausting because I try to find solutions from old behaviors for situations that these old behaviors haven't solved, often for decades.

I have to try the same thing over and over again because I'm stuck in interpersonal dynamics.

2. Not Helpful for Therapists

But the same also applies to therapists—that is: We as therapists also have incredible disadvantages when we're stuck in interpersonal dynamics.

a) For Perception

First, we have disadvantages for our perception:

Where we're stuck in projections, in transference, it's very difficult for us to actually perceive objectively or even just sensitively—and precisely not to project parts of our experience onto our counterpart.

b) For Burnout

But it's just as difficult also for things like burnout.

Often it's the sessions after which we feel most burned out where we're precisely not with each other in a resonance, in a therapeutic relationship based on the here and now—where we meet as adults and then look together at how we can take steps together.

Instead, where we're actually in interpersonal dynamics with each other and we're trying to:

Rescue someone
Or someone actually meets us as a small child, and we're frantically trying to do something good for them

These are all things that also don't do us good and that actually make our work less effective.

c) For Effectiveness

Regardless of whether we talk with people because we touch them, whether we do constellations with them, whatever:

The more we can research together with other adults in the here and now, the easier and more effective our work becomes.

Summary

This means: Interpersonal dynamics are not helpful—not helpful for clients, for us.

The Plan for This Article Series

And we'd like to look together with you today: How can we find ways out of these traps—and which traps these exactly are—we'll look at that in the next articles.

The Three Steps

By:

1. Understanding

First: Understanding interpersonal dynamics:

What is projection?
What is projective identification?
What happens in the process?

2. Recognizing

Then second, being able to recognize them—naming examples for this:

"I've experienced this before"

3. Exiting

To then third look at: How can we exit from them?

Today's Focus

Today's articles concentrate on these two steps—because exiting simply needs practice and more experience. That's what we offer, for example, in our workshops and similar settings.

But today we want to look with you at:

How can we understand these interpersonal dynamics—projections, transference?
And how can we recognize them?

Much joy with the articles!