The Role of the Therapy Room in the Clinical Frame

Counsellors, psychotherapists and psychoanalysts often refer to the frame in therapy and any training worth its salt will drum into the budding therapist the importance of ‘the clinical frame’.

The clinical frame, broadly, refers to the environment and relationship that enables a client to feel safe and open up to their therapist.  It is therefore an essential aspect of any talking therapy.

The counsellor, psychotherapist or psychoanalyst is responsible for creating and holding the frame with clients and this applies as much to the physical environment in which the therapy takes place, as it does to the disposition and character of the clinician themselves.

Sam Jahara and myself, like many therapists in Brighton and Hove, rented therapy rooms by the hour for many years and from a range of institutions.  One of the most frustrating aspects of room rental was how often the frame would become disturbed or disrupted by circumstances beyond our control.  For example, at times clinicians using rooms would have a lax attitude to timekeeping, meaning they left the room late and we would then be pushed for time to get our session started; rooms were often left untidy; other clinicians would hold loud conversations in public areas; rooms could at times be double booked.  The list goes on.

All of this made creating and holding the frame difficult and contributed to our stress levels meaning we could not be as present for our clients as we felt we should be.  This led us to eventually deciding to find our own clinical space – Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy – so we could take direct responsibility for creating the sort of environment conducive to good therapeutic work.  It is a space we enjoy sharing with like minded therapists.

We offer quiet, clean and well-appointed clinical rooms, suitable for a wide range of clinical work;

Our rooms are located on the top floor of a beautiful period building in central Hove, meaning that footfall is minimal and noise well contained;

Hourly room rental (50 minutes) starts from as little as £7 per hour;

Sam and I both run our private practices from the premises, meaning we are able to directly contribute to creating the sort of environment and atmosphere conducive to boundaried therapy;

We offer a kitchen for the exclusive use of clinicians, with plenty of water jugs for use with clients;

We like to personally get to know clinician’s renting from us and with time, we offer the opportunity to become an Associate of our practice, leading to cross-referrals and the opportunity to actively contribute your opinion to what would help improve the practice;

And, from 6 March 2015, we are pleased to announce that we are now offering WiFi to all our practitioners free of charge.

If you would like further information, please visit our Therapy Room Rental Page, drop us an email or call us on 01273 921355.

Mark Vahrmeyer

Image credit: Heather Hook