When engaging with a client, Dr. Dity Brunn develops a therapeutic relationship that includes empathy and support for the client and an understanding of the client within the context of his or her significant relationships. Underlying her therapeutic technique is Dr. Brunn’s belief that the client’s relationship with the therapist recreates how the individual interacts with family, friends, and colleagues or coworkers and that the therapeutic relationship can serve as a mechanism for positive change.

Clients come to therapy for a variety of reasons, but the overarching one is that they are experiencing the pain of not having their needs met. The most primary of these needs is to be understood and accepted, which can be met through the therapeutic relationship.

In the context of the empathic relationship with Dr. Brunn, the individual can explore how early life experiences, such as trauma, loss, and fear, have led to certain protective or defensive mechanisms that may interfere with the client’s ways of relating to others. Working with the therapist, the individual comes to understand how his or her behaviors, which, in the past, were beneficial, now cause his or her needs to go unmet – creating what you fear instead of what you want. Dr. Brunn helps her clients to develop their understanding of themselves and to internalize the beliefs and learn the behaviors that will enable them to engage in more satisfying ways of relating and to growing.