Models of Therapeutic Engagement Part II: Sincerity and Authenticity

Our topic concerns four relational modes of speaking and listening, and their relationship to truth and falsity. In a separate article, Part I introduced the topic and discussed the modes of diplomacy and integrity. The focus of Part II is on sincerity and authenticity, and on the interrelationship among all four modes and their differing functions in the totality of the clinical situation. Together the papers disentangle and address some of the technical issues that concern the relational group psychotherapist regarding topics of intersubjectivity, presentation of self, and self-disclosure. The four overlapping categories while nonexclusive are exhaustive, they supply conceptual references for the therapeutic stance one has adopted, allowing the therapist to be more aware of what he or she is doing and why.