Negative relating and psychotherapy

Abstract

Ideally a person would always relate positively. People relate negatively because they have not acquired the capability to relate positively. Psychotherapy patients consistently obtain high scores on the Person’s Relating to Others Questionnaire (PROQ3; Birtchnell, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 20(1), 36-48, 2013), which is a measure of negative relating. People seek psychotherapy not because they consider themselves to relate negatively to people, but because they experience themselves as being excessively anxious or depressed or because they consider that others relate negatively towards them. The procedure of changing negative relating to positive (i.e. Relating Therapy) is introduced. Even though conventional psychotherapists do not consciously or specifically direct their attention towards the elimination of negative relating, patients’ PROQ3 scores tend to reduce significantly over the course of psychotherapy.