In the UK, it is a requirement for trainee psychotherapists to be in weekly therapy with a senior practitioner throughout the duration of their training. However, once qualified many therapists do not continue their personal therapy beyond the therapy hours required. In this blog, I argue why it is vital for psychotherapists working at depth to have their own analysis.
Therapists can’t take their clients to places they have not been
I would argue that without extensive personal analysis, it is going to be difficult for a practitioner to get to places with certain clients who need to delve deeper into their psyche in order to change. Depth psychotherapy is about bringing the unconscious into consciousness so unhealthy and painful patterns don’t carry on repeating. It is essentially a journey of maturation and move towards adulthood in the psychological sense. This entails getting to know oneself very well through the uncovering of early experiences that have shaped us on a fundamental level. It also entails mourning early losses, of people and experiences not had. Some people don’t know how certain events have affected them until they start uncovering these in psychotherapy or analysis. This uncovering, or rather discovering, is vital because what remains unconscious will invariably continue to adversely affect our present lives.
The therapist’s unprocessed unconscious experiences adversely affect their work
The less therapy a therapist has had, the more scope there will be for therapeutic ruptures and failures. Ruptures and failures take shape in the form of clients leaving therapy too soon, work staying unhelpfully on the surface and sometimes painful and unresolvable conflict between therapist and client. Working with at depth entails paying attention to multiple forms of unconscious communication from client to therapist and sticking to a therapeutic frame which safely contains the work.
Unconscious communication manifests in a variety of ways depending on the person and their process. For instance, challenging the therapeutic frame by arriving late, cancelling sessions often, forgetting appointments, paying late on a regular basis, etc.
Everything is relevant in psychotherapy – from how and where a client sits to how they express themselves, words, slips of the tongue, eye contact, tone of voice, facial expressions, how they relate to their therapist, how they perceive the therapist relating to them. Not to mention what a client chooses to bring and not bring to the sessions, their dreams, hopes, wishes, desires, etc, etc… the list is endless!
Psychotherapists who have not been on the receiving end of the lens being turned on them to this degree, will not be able to fully appreciate what is it like for a client to experience such depth of enquiry. In addition to this, it is our job to ask difficult questions, to challenge, to think the unthinkable and feel with the client feelings which are hard to bear. None of this is possible without extensive personal work.
So why aren’t all therapists in therapy?
I am not arguing for all therapists to be in therapy for the rest of their careers, but to have gone through as much therapy as possible and have worked on themselves to the degree where they are being truly helpful to a wide range of presentations and are able to take their clients to places where they would only have with the help of their own personal analysis. I would argue for therapists to have gone through at least two in-depth periods of psychotherapy with a highly trained and competent psychotherapist or psychoanalyst. We can only truly ‘get’ people when we have felt truly ‘gotten’.
Psychotherapy is something that psychotherapists need to keep coming back to throughout their working lives. To experience a variety of modalities and ways of working from those who are more competent and experienced than us, can only enhance the quality of therapy that we are able to offer. This quality will ultimately show in the relationship with our clients and other people in our lives. It is vital to keep our emotional lives in check on a regular basis – afterall, we owe it to ourselves and the people we work with.
Sam Jahara is a UKCP registered Psychotherapist, Supervisor and Executive Coach. She is also the co-founder of Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy. Sam works with individuals and couples from Hove and Lewes.
Further reading by Sam Jahara –
Radical self care as an antidote to overwhelm
The adult survivor of neglect and abuse – lifelong considerations
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