The research is focused on self-awareness and the use of this concept in the therapeutic practice in the field of relational marital and family therapy. This research uses a mixed method design. The first empirical part of research is based on a quasi-experimental research design and focuses on the impact of therapist’s meditation, as a method of self-awareness, on therapeutic alliance, measured by the therapist and the client, as well as on the bond aspect of that alliance. Statistical analysis of results is qualitatively deepened by the therapist’s notes and transcribed audio text from therapeutic sessions. The second empirical part uses a qualitative research design, an Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), to analyse 9 transcripts from semi-structured interviews with 9 relational marital and family therapists in order to put the quantitative data into a broader and deeper context. IPA generates 3 main themes: “Even I grow with them”- I as a therapist, “Contact with myself”-self-aware as a therapist, “Nothing is wrong, it’s all right”-self-care. Main themes encapsulate the participants’ experiences with their work and personal lives and the central meaning they attribute to self-awareness as “the most important tool” of their therapeutic work. The participants especially stressed the constant self-growth as necessary to their therapeutic work, as well as the need to detach one’s personal and professional lives and implement self-care as an elementary tenet of their work. The main limitation of this research is its small numerus with regards to the quantitative part. In the future more studies are needed to deepen our understanding of the impact of self-awareness work on the quality of the therapeutic alliance and consequently on the therapeutic outcome.
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