Might you be a good psychotherapist or counsellor? See how you respond to the statements below:
• I find that people turn to me to talk about their problems
• How people make sense of the world interests me
• At times I find life difficult
• I like to think about my life and explore different aspects of what makes me who I am
• When I was younger people told me I was “too sensitive”
• Relationships are important to me
• I would like to work with other people to help them find meaning and acceptance and change in their lives
• I like to talk about feelings
• Sometimes I can sense the atmosphere in a room
• I think having a stable sense of self is important
• I am interested in other peoples’ lives – their stories, their thoughts, their feelings
• I can keep going even when I find life painful
• The idea of creatively exploring the unknown appeals to me
• I can identify different types of feelings in myself and others
These statements represent common thoughts, feelings and concerns of psychotherapy and counselling trainees and have arisen in Minster Centre discussion groups.
What do you think of these statements? How do you feel reading the different ideas and sentiments expressed by these statements?
If you recognise and are attracted by this way of thinking then it could be that you would enjoy training as a counsellor or psychotherapist, and practice successfully once qualified.
http://www.minstercentre.org.uk/TestYourself/default.asp
Personal Qualities
Extensive research studies have shown that a number of personal qualities of the psychotherapist or counsellor play a very important part in determining the effectiveness of the therapeutic relationship. The personal qualities which contribute include:
Empathy: the quality which enables someone to enter the internal world of another person and be aware of what is going on there
Genuineness or Congruence: the quality which enables us to be aware of our own inner world and what is going on there;
Unconditional Positive Regard or Non-possessive Warmth: the quality which enables us to give consistent warmth of regard to another person;
Concreteness: the quality which enables us to put feelings and ideas into words which are not vague or abstract;
Respect: the quality which enables us to treat other people as on a level with ourselves, and worthy of our engagement with them;
Confrontation or Challenging: the quality which enables us to detect contradictions in what is being said and done, to detect falseness and bring it to notice;
Immediacy: the quality of being present in the here and now, which enables us to relate to and speak to what is coming up in the moment.
We believe that most people are capable of developing their personal qualities and, further, that counselling and psychotherapy training must provide the opportunity for their development.
Your Own Therapy
People often ask the question – "Why should I have to be in therapy?" They think to themselves that they are not in need of therapy, so why should they have to pay a lot of money for something unnecessary?
There are several connected answers to this.
Firstly if you are going to be a therapist (let us use that one word to mean counsellor or psychotherapist), it is important to understand from the inside what it is like to be a client; otherwise you are unlikely to be able to treat clients with understanding.
Secondly, if as a therapist you are helping someone else to be more of a whole person, you need to have some direct experience of what it means to be a whole person yourself. One of the things that happens in therapy is that people heal their splits and resolve their internal conflicts. If you as a therapist have never experienced this – (and if you say you have no internal conflicts don't even bother to think you are ready for courses like these) – then you are not going to have sufficient empathy to be with the client in the way that is required.
Thirdly, when you are working with clients they can press your buttons. In response to them you may feel angry, fearful, impatient, mistrustful, frustrated, defensive or mystified. To the extent that you have been through therapy yourself you are going to have fewer buttons to be pressed, and so will be less reactive and more able to reflect on your experience.
Fourthly, the breakthroughs in your own therapy can give you courage to work with your clients until they have breakthroughs of their own. Unless you have had your own gains in your own therapy, you are less likely to believe that your clients can genuinely change. A lot of therapy is about hope. And the experiences that gave you hope can enable you to work toward experiences with your clients in which they can experience genuine and well-founded hope.
But still, the cautious person may say, this all does seem to assume that I must have problems of some kind. Suppose I don't? Well, don't come on a course like this. A person with no humility or with limited insight is not likely to be much use to others.
It is the wounded healer who is most approachable and most reachable.
• I find that people turn to me to talk about their problems
• How people make sense of the world interests me
• At times I find life difficult
• I like to think about my life and explore different aspects of what makes me who I am
• When I was younger people told me I was “too sensitive”
• Relationships are important to me
• I would like to work with other people to help them find meaning and acceptance and change in their lives
• I like to talk about feelings
• Sometimes I can sense the atmosphere in a room
• I think having a stable sense of self is important
• I am interested in other peoples’ lives – their stories, their thoughts, their feelings
• I can keep going even when I find life painful
• The idea of creatively exploring the unknown appeals to me
• I can identify different types of feelings in myself and others
These statements represent common thoughts, feelings and concerns of psychotherapy and counselling trainees and have arisen in Minster Centre discussion groups.
What do you think of these statements? How do you feel reading the different ideas and sentiments expressed by these statements?
If you recognise and are attracted by this way of thinking then it could be that you would enjoy training as a counsellor or psychotherapist, and practice successfully once qualified.
http://www.minstercentre.org.uk/TestYourself/default.asp
Personal Qualities
Extensive research studies have shown that a number of personal qualities of the psychotherapist or counsellor play a very important part in determining the effectiveness of the therapeutic relationship. The personal qualities which contribute include:
Empathy: the quality which enables someone to enter the internal world of another person and be aware of what is going on there
Genuineness or Congruence: the quality which enables us to be aware of our own inner world and what is going on there;
Unconditional Positive Regard or Non-possessive Warmth: the quality which enables us to give consistent warmth of regard to another person;
Concreteness: the quality which enables us to put feelings and ideas into words which are not vague or abstract;
Respect: the quality which enables us to treat other people as on a level with ourselves, and worthy of our engagement with them;
Confrontation or Challenging: the quality which enables us to detect contradictions in what is being said and done, to detect falseness and bring it to notice;
Immediacy: the quality of being present in the here and now, which enables us to relate to and speak to what is coming up in the moment.
We believe that most people are capable of developing their personal qualities and, further, that counselling and psychotherapy training must provide the opportunity for their development.
Your Own Therapy
People often ask the question – "Why should I have to be in therapy?" They think to themselves that they are not in need of therapy, so why should they have to pay a lot of money for something unnecessary?
There are several connected answers to this.
Firstly if you are going to be a therapist (let us use that one word to mean counsellor or psychotherapist), it is important to understand from the inside what it is like to be a client; otherwise you are unlikely to be able to treat clients with understanding.
Secondly, if as a therapist you are helping someone else to be more of a whole person, you need to have some direct experience of what it means to be a whole person yourself. One of the things that happens in therapy is that people heal their splits and resolve their internal conflicts. If you as a therapist have never experienced this – (and if you say you have no internal conflicts don't even bother to think you are ready for courses like these) – then you are not going to have sufficient empathy to be with the client in the way that is required.
Thirdly, when you are working with clients they can press your buttons. In response to them you may feel angry, fearful, impatient, mistrustful, frustrated, defensive or mystified. To the extent that you have been through therapy yourself you are going to have fewer buttons to be pressed, and so will be less reactive and more able to reflect on your experience.
Fourthly, the breakthroughs in your own therapy can give you courage to work with your clients until they have breakthroughs of their own. Unless you have had your own gains in your own therapy, you are less likely to believe that your clients can genuinely change. A lot of therapy is about hope. And the experiences that gave you hope can enable you to work toward experiences with your clients in which they can experience genuine and well-founded hope.
But still, the cautious person may say, this all does seem to assume that I must have problems of some kind. Suppose I don't? Well, don't come on a course like this. A person with no humility or with limited insight is not likely to be much use to others.
It is the wounded healer who is most approachable and most reachable.
Well, what do you think? I seem to want this so badly. But I fear to fly. And I refuse to crawl anymore. So...
2009 is MY year. I WILL own it.
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