What Are the Dimensions of Helping Relationships?

Sociologist Robert Carkhuff wrote the seminal work on the four core dimensions of helping relationships that are used by a variety of health care and human services workers. These five dimensions are the foundational aspects of building healthy and productive relationships with clients in need of service. Understanding the basics of these five dimensions and their application can enrich both the worker and the client in immeasurable ways.

Background of the Four Dimensions

• Sociologist Robert Carkhuff is responsible for developing "the science of human generativity" and a complex yet practical theory of adult helping relationships that can assist health care workers and human service workers in their service to their clients and patients. Carkhuff's theory is quite exhaustive, but there are five basic dimensions of helping relationships that are useful to know in relation to his expansive theory.

Empathy

• Empathy is described as the ability to understand the clients condition or predicament in a way that you as the helper can relate the experience to your own life. Empathy differs from sympathy in that there is a sense of personal understanding involved with the empathetic facility that is missing from the sympathetic response. Helpers must be able to empathize with the client to begin helping the person.

Respect

• Helping professionals should have an amount of respect for the client that affords them a feeling of being listened to and acknowledged. Respect is garnered through active listening and affirmation of the clients needs without being patronizing or heavy handed with your suggestions or expertise. Respecting the individual as an adult that has a valuable contribution to the world greatly enhances the helping relationship.

Genuineness

• The ability to be genuine in one's interactions with the client helps ease the client's fears of entering into the helping relationship. A certain amount of self-disclosure may be necessary to let the client know that you are approachable and available to discuss matters pertaining to the relationship. False pretenses or uncharacteristic language or mannerisms are typically detected by most clients and considered deterrents to fostering a relationship.

Concreteness

• Being clear about the nature of the relationship you are entering into is one way to establish a sense of concreteness. In addition to defining the helping relationship, it is important to provide tangible ways the client can ascertain the effectiveness of the treatment or service. This may take some time depending on the nature of the service provided, but maintaining a sense of grounding in the practical application of your relationship can help to put the client at ease.

Warmth

• Warmth is an important aspect of the helping relationship and an aspect that not everyone excels at equally. Warmth must not be cultivated in a way that undermines one's genuineness in a relationship. Sometimes a simple question about the client or patient's family or interests can help foster a sense of warmth in a relationship and put the client at ease in stressful or awkward situations. Tone of voice, inflection and eye contact can greatly improve one's warmth factor.