ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces readers to the ORCA-Stance, a relational style taken with clients as a way to create connection and understanding. Through taking this Stance from a collaborative perspective, the therapist is invited to explore the interpersonal impacts of each aspect as they relate to the therapist and their client. The Stance is based on the concepts of being open, respectful, curious, and accountable to the known as well as the less recognized social power present in the relationship. Experiential exercises for each concept are defined, explored, and tied to ideas of cultural humility. Openness is linked to the psychotherapy impacts of empathy and secondary trauma, respect to human worth, curiosity with taking a non-expert position, and accountability to the ways in which social status vulnerabilities might operate in the clinical encounter. Christian theological ties are also explored.
