The Psychotherapy Room

My Current Office Room.

The psychotherapy room with its furnishings, colors, lighting, framed pictures, and so on provides an ambient environment for the patient as well as the therapist.  The room may, based on the patient’s determination, become a safe haven to explore uncharted mental territory.  For many patients, the psychotherapy room as a whole and objects within the room is an extension of the therapist and his/her personality style.  The room space as well as the relationship developed with the therapist is what compose healing (Gerald, Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2011). 

 

I was mindful of these influential elements when I moved into my current office room pictured above a few years ago.  The position and placement of furniture, the colors chosen, the brightness of lighting, framed prints, etc. were among the many objects I considered based on my preference of style and taste.  I carefully considered how the objects in the room as well as the ambient environment would be perceived by whoever steps into the office.  I wanted to ensure that this room becomes a mental home for many of my patients.

 

Few times when patients come to my office room for the first time and when they see the couch, I hear a chuckle coming from them.  The Freudian couch has become synonymous, a symbol of psychotherapy.  Objects in the psychotherapy room have come and gone over the years and yet the couch was noted to have almost always remained in place since Freud introduced this piece of furniture in the 19th century (Lingiardi & De Bei, Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2011).  I don’t use the couch in the manner conducted by a classical psychoanalyst.  To me, the couch represents those placed in family rooms where many sit down to relax, and this is why I have it in the office room.

 

I have already spent countless hours with patients in that room and it always has been a place where I enjoy spending time in.  I find that the room I created is not only conductive to patients’ growth, but of mine as well.  Mi habitacion es su habitacion!  My room is your room!