ABSTRACT
Central to a focused approach to psychological therapy is the importance of a commitment, agreed by practitioner and client, to the therapeutic engagement. Practitioners continually assess their client’s level of commitment so as to match this with an appropriate offer of their own commitment. This is part of the process often described as making a contract with the client. In the previous chapter, I suggested some of the reasons that clients can be puzzled and repelled by this phraseology. A written legal agreement is implied, although this is nonexistent, and the verb ‘to contract’ is unpleasantly linked to the notion of compression and shrinkage. I now prefer to express this in terms of a joint commitment with the client. This term has emotional associations which can be expressed in practical terms, as in the following questions, addressed to herself by an experienced practitioner: ‘Am I willing to commit to the client? How much will this commitment take from me? How much is this client willing to commit to the process, at this time?’ (Murphy 1994, personal communication).
