What is our role as a therapist? And, as clinicians, what do we provide our clients? I heard Bonnie Badenoch, therapist and author, describe these key offerings as “being a therapeutic presence” during a recent interview with Tami Simon, founder of SoundsTrue, on the free podcast series Insights at the Edge.

In the podcast Trauma and the Embodied Brain, Bonnie describes the notion of ‘agenda-less’ therapy and how connecting relationally from a deep presence makes all the difference to our autonomic nervous system as it continually scans for a ‘safe/unsafe’ other. All of this, of course, is occurring below the level of consciousness.

Bonnie elaborates on our inherent bent toward healing and well being. She says that the easiest way to change our state is to be with someone who is in a state that we want to be in because it helps us register a sense of safety within. This validates the ever-important therapeutic relationship as the primary agent of healing within the work between therapist and client.