ABSTRACT
There is a growing interest in relational therapy as well as research on relating in psychotherapy and relational research. Importantly there is growing international recognition, of what is taken as research evidence, which suggests it is the relationship that is the most important factor in facilitating a successful outcome in psychological therapy. In the 1970s, a group of analysts began to explore extensions of Sullivan's interpersonal psychoanalysis and what has become known as relational psychoanalysis emerged from this grouping. There is the belief that there are significant humanistic routes to relational psychoanalysis including the work of Carl Rogers. Various attempts have been made to move towards objectifying it from transference, countertransference to the relational to perhaps even phenomenology. But whatever, they appear currently, and likely forever, to be beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding.
