Therapeutic presence refers to the therapist's ability to be with their client by being fully present on different levels: physically, emotionally, cognitively and spiritually. Some studies show that self-compassion is positively linked to the therapeutic presence and theories also suggest that physical processes are an important part of the therapeutic presence, therefore, in my master’s thesis, I researched how interoception, which is the ability to perceive one’s physical body states, and self-compassion relate to therapeutic presence. The study involved 92 therapists from various fields of psychotherapy, who filled out the following questionnaires online: The Therapeutic Presence Inventory (TPI-T), The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness, Version 2 (MAIA-2) and the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS). The results showed that the therapists who are more present in their therapeutic environment, are also more compassionate towards themselves and have a better interoceptive awareness. Attention regulation and low self-judgment also proved to be important predictors of therapeutic presence. This means that the therapists who are less self-judging and more able to control and keep their attention focused on their physical sensations are also more present. On the other hand, therapeutic non-presence is predicted by overidentification and low perception of physical sensations, which means that the therapists who are less present are the ones who identify too strongly with their thoughts and feelings and have a lower ability to perceive physical sensations. These results offer a deeper insight into the important characteristics of a psychotherapist who is therapeutically present.
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