Relational Scope: A Critical Gap

Relational Scope: A critical gap in helping and the relationship

We often talk about relational depth, below-the-surface feelings, encounter, flow, attunement, presence, or emotional connection. These concepts have shaped how we understand therapeutic relationships for decades. They draw our attention to the quality of contact between (mostly) two people at a level of human to human experience, the felt sense of being with another, not just talking at them.

But there is another dimension that tends to remain underexamined: relational scope (Ahmad, 2026).

Relational encounter is not enough without relational breadth

Relational depth often focuses on intensity, how deeply we can meet another person in the moment. But relational life is not only vertical (deep) or dyadic (between two people). It is also horizontal, expanding across different layers of human and more-than-human existence.

Relational scope refers to how broadly a person extends their sense of connection, concern, and identification:

• with individual others
• with communities and social groups
• with nations and cultures
• with humanity as a whole
• with the planet and the more-than-human world

This raises a vital question: can we individually and within groups develop depth and  extend it across scope?

In other words, how far and how deeply can empathy travel?

From “I–Mine” to “I–We”

Traditional Western psychological framing often centres the individual: I–Mine, or at best I–Thou. But relational scope invites something more expansive: an I–We orientation.

This does not dissolve individuality. Rather, it situates the self within wider systems of relationship. Over time, as people develop, their relational scope may expand, through experience, reflection, encounter, or exposure to difference.

We do not simply become more self-aware. We may also become more world-aware, more able to hold complexity, and more capable of sensing ourselves as part of interconnected systems.

Context is not outside the relationship – it is the relationship

In A New Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy (p. 180), I introduce the term relational scope to address a persistent gap in how we think about therapeutic relationships.

Contextual and intersecting dimensions: worldviews, identities, lived cultures, knowledge systems, embodiment, and time (WICKET) are often treated as “background factors.” But they are not separate from the relationship. They constitute its breadth and multiplicity.

Each dimension may require different ways of:

• listening
• attuning
• interpreting meaning
• recognising power
• relating ethically
• a level of encounter

A relational encounter is never only “between two people.” It is always shaped by wider systems of meaning and positioning. Furthermore, relationships exist within a multitude of relational nodes: groups, communities, spaces, environment, infrastructure including social media and AI, institutions relations, planet, time, technology and so on.

When “good enough” is not enough

We often refer to the “good enough” therapeutic relationship as a standard of effectiveness or sufficiency. But relational scope raises an uncomfortable question:

Good enough for whom, and at what level of context?

A relationship may feel attuned at a personal level, yet fail to engage with:

• cultural meaning systems
• experiences of marginalisation
• historical and structural injustice
• ecological or collective realities
• intergenerational or transpersonal dimensions

Without attending to relational scope, “good enough” risks becoming narrowly individualised, missing the very contexts that shape distress, identity, and meaning. This then disadvantages some groups more and also excludes aspects of relating in everyone e.g., male identity, boarding school. or impact of having lots of power.

The scale of relational failure and relational possibility

It is striking that relational scope is not more central in counselling and psychotherapy, given the disparities in experience that occur across:

• individual interactions
• intersecting social identities
• vulnerable populations
• institutions and systems
• ecological and global contexts

These are not separate arenas. They are interconnected layers of relational reality.

To ignore them is to risk misunderstanding not only the client, but the world in which the client is formed and is forming.

Expanding the question of empathy

If relational depth asks how fully can I meet you?, relational scope asks:

• Who is included in “you”?
• What systems are present in this encounter?
• What histories are being carried into the room?
• What forms of life are we including or excluding?
• Where does care extend and where does it stop?

This is not only a clinical question. It is an empathic and ethical one. One that opens up the relational cage without excluding any aspect of the relationship or interconnecting relationships form self-development, the relationship and empathic skills.

A closing reflection

Relational scope is not fixed. It is something that may expand, contract, or become distorted depending on experience, learning, trauma, culture, and power.

My own relational scope has grown over time through practice, dialogue, and exposure to different ways of knowing and being.

So I end with a question rather than a conclusion:

What are your experiences of relational scope, and how far does your sense of “we” extend?

Mamood Ahmad (2026) – A New Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy: Embedding Context, Diversity, and Equity into Practice.