What is helpful in therapy?

Sounds interesting. Are you looking at any specific therapies?

I am a therapist and have experienced a range of different treatments, but body and talk therapies, as a client, and in my opinion, whatever therapy is being offered, the most important things are: the "connection" (which is difficult to describe but I am guessing many people here will know exactly what this means) and being acknowledged and accepted without judgement.
Good listening is essential in this, as you already mentioned, SueWigg.

There is a good article on what makes "supershrinks" more effective than other psychotherapists - and the findings of the research described in this are as applicable to body therapists as to talk therapists. Being able to ask for and receive feedback from client - including criticism - and taking this into account to improve own performance appears to be a crucial factor. I strive to ask my clients at the end of every session what was most useful, what wasn't so useful, and if there was anything that wasn't comfortable or jarred for them. I've learned some really interesting things this way!

Masha

Sounds interesting. Are you looking at any specific therapies?

No, I am not looking at any specific therapies although I was generally thinking of talking therapies. However, I am guessing that many people can get a lot of psychological help from, say, a very good and caring massage therapist.

Not completely relevant, but a lot of success in therapy is due to the readiness of the client to work, John Rowan suggests as much as 40%, so you want to make sure your website is attractive to motivated clients. If you can get these clients preferentially, your stats could make you a supershrink just by you giving clients a cup of tea. Such is how stats can be misused, but hey, that's the world we live in.

I had a look at your website, and liked a lot of what I saw, some of it was good enough to "borrow"!

Just a couple of points: I would like to suggest that if you read along the tabs it looks like you are asking "does cbt work" rather than "does therapy with me work" and it might be more helpful if you could find a way of saying "How do you know for sure that my way of doing therapy works?"

Similarly, what you say about CBT makes me think of the Jewish saying "from your mouth to God's ears" but it might come across to less well-informed clients as too defensive. Can I suggest that, similarly, you find a short way of saying "Why my therapy is at least as good for you as CBT".

Note I don't use negatives in headings: its bad advertising practice.

When you have done this I'll pop back and borrow those as well lol.

What have I found most helpful in the past: the holding relationship, and the connection others have mentioned. Those I didn't connect with didn't stay my therapist for long. People are different in what they want at different times aren't they? I wouldn't want someone who didn't offer me much back execpt what I brought to the therapy, and I have had some who worked like that. My first experience of therapy was at a very difficult time when I was very angry and not allowing myself to be: my poor therapist patiently bore the brunt of this for months.... that patience allowed me to build up the trust to be able to work usefully.

It's an interesting piece of research - good luck with it.

Ultimately it's all about connection. The therapist creates a space that the client perceives as keeping the chaos at bay and gives him breathing room in which a little bit of human magic can occur. As the relationship between client and therapist unfolds, so does the client's own relationship with himself. The more the therapist can embody sensitivity, acceptance and understanding, the more the client is able to do that by himself for himself. Methodology and technique are only truly important to the degree that they resonate with the client on the level of body, mind and soul.