“If I Can Grapple With This I Can Truly Be Of Use In The Therapy Room”: Using The Therapist's Own Emotional Struggles To Facilitate Effective Therapy (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Person-of-the-Therapist Model on the Use of Self in Therapy : The Training Philosophy
2016
Introduction The Concept The Person of the Therapist Training Model represents a concept within the province of the use of self in therapy that contains a combination of certain particular features: Although the training goals consider the personal growth and development of the therapist, the model's primary emphasis is on the therapists' ability to make purposeful and skillful use of their personal selves and life experiences within the professional role of therapist-the therapeutic relationship, the assessment process, and the implementation of interventions. The personal use of self includes all aspects of what the therapist brings of the personal self into the therapeutic process with the clients but with special attention to therapists' own emotional "woundedness," which enables empathy and resonance with clients' "woundedness." The training aspect of the model evinces itself through a systematic process and structure that aims to have therapists: Recognize who they are and what they bring of their personal selves, good and bad, to the therapeutic encounter, enabling them to be open and vulnerable within themselves while (b) (b) simultaneously well-grounded and differentiated when engaged with clients. Not only gain insight into themselves but also develop an acceptance and comfort with themselves, especially with their personal emotional vulnerabilities, that frees them to make positive, selective, and active use of all aspects of self as needed to lend depth of the presence, perception, and sensitivity along with self-possession and power to their technical skills. Theoretical Context Attention to work on the emotional life of the self of the individual who is conducting therapy started with Sigmund Freud's (1910) expectation that aspiring analysts undergo their own psychoanalysis as part of their training. With the birth of systemically based therapies, Murray Bowen (1972) and Virginia Satir (2000) stand out as proponents of working on nascent family therapists' resolving personal issues and differentiating themselves as a basic part of their training. Aponte and Joan Winter in their "person practice" model (Aponte and Winter 2013) put their focus on bridging the work on self with the mastery of the technical or "external" tools of the trade. Aponte (Aponte et al. 2009), in Drexel University's Couple and Family Therapy Department in Philadelphia, developed a systematized approach to the training of beginning therapists in the use of self in couple and family therapy, the Person of the Therapist Training (POTT) Model, that prioritizes clinicians' making the fullest use of their personal selves, in particular of their emotional vulnerabilities, in all aspects of the therapeutic process-the relationship, assessment, and interventions. While the work on self in the training of therapists has traditionally focused primarily on helping therapists resolve personal emotional issues that interfere with their clinical effectiveness, the POTT Model emphasizes therapists' in the present therapeutic moment making purposeful and strategic use within their therapy models of their personal core emotional issues, life experiences (good and bad), and their values/world views. The special attention to therapists' use of their emotional vulnerabilities is based on the premise that it is through these personal issues of theirs that therapists are best prepared to relate to the emotional struggles of their clients. Thus, their training aims at therapists' coming to better know themselves, to have ready access to their inner experiences when engaged with clients, and to gain greater mastery in the purposeful use of their personal selves in the moment when actively engaged with clients. While the experience of this POTT training commonly leads to personal change and growth in therapists, the thrust of the training is to enrich, enliven, and power the technical skills of the therapist with the personal resources of the therapist's whole person. The training is model neutral and serves as foundation to the core formation of the person who aspires to connect with clients, understand and intuit their feelings and relational dynamics, and reach in and touch their pain and hurts along with their potential to change.
The Soul of Therapy: The Therapist’s Use of Self in the Therapeutic Relationship
Contemporary Family Therapy
This paper is based on the premises that the conscious, active and purposeful use of self by the therapist in the therapeutic process is an essential aptitude in establishing an effective therapeutic relationship, and that this therapeutically purposeful use of self can and should be incorporated in the training of all therapists in a explicitly systematic manner. The paper will attempt to identify the contributions of the “what and how” the use of self by therapists contributes to the therapeutic process. First of all, therapists’ use of self is meant to be viewed as a Common Factor as defined by Sprenkle, Davis & Lebow (2009), which is a perspective about the effectiveness of therapy that “asserts that the qualities and capabilities of the person offering the treatment are more important than the treatment itself” (p. 4). Secondly, the use of self by therapists emphasizes developing the skill set of the therapist in the conscious, active and purposeful use of self as is in the mom...
Therapist Self-as-Context and the Curative Relationship
Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 2013
This article discusses how the way the therapist relates to his or her personal responses to client material during the session contributes to making the relationship with the client an effective tool for treatment. Ideas from third wave behavior therapy are used to describe aspects of therapist involvement in the relationship and modes of therapist awareness of inner responses. In two vignettes, negative client reactions to an intervention bring problematic therapist material to the fore. Both cases highlight how the stories the therapists spun about themselves as professionals and persons could easily have limited their effectiveness in responding to the material. The vignettes also illustrate how clinicians can overcome personal meanings and judgments to access a more productive mode of interacting with the feelings a critical incident in the relationship evokes in them. It is argued that observing their own content from a psychological distance makes it possible for clinicians to use their feelings without getting caught up in them. These same feelings may then help the therapist perceive how the incident relates to the client's daily life problems. The therapist's engagement in a sense of self-as-context is described as a therapeutic stance that provides the psychological distance needed to help overcome alliance ruptures and other potential gridlocks and which may transform the therapist's inner response to client content into a tool for addressing important client issues.
2020
The POTT model calls for mastery of self to meet the personal challenges clients present to us in both the technical venue and the therapeutic relationship. The model proffers three basic goals of the training. First, in order to be able to achieve this personal mastery in the professional context of therapy, therapists must know themselves, particularly the dominant personal challengespsychological, cultural, and spiritual-that mark their lives, along with the history and current status of their struggle with these life themes. Models for the use of self normally focus almost exclusively on the emotional aspects of therapists' lives. The POTT model also lends weight to therapists' culture, values, and spirituality, which are as vital as their psychology in forming their outlooks toward life and its challenges. Second, clinicians must have the ability to observe, have access to, and exercise judgment about the emotions, memories, and behaviors that spring from their own pe...
The Use of Self of the Therapist
Contemporary Family Therapy, 2002
This article explores how the Satir model facilitates the development of the self of the therapist, which Virginia Satir strongly advocated. Discovering and developing creative ways to externalize the internal hidden processes of people, she invited therapists to work on their own unresolved issues in their training through various methods such as: family of origin, family reconstruction, ingredients of an interaction, and parts party. Her goal was to increase self-esteem, foster better choice making, increase responsibility, and facilitate personal congruence through a therapeutic process. Although very relevant in the training and professional development of therapists, there has been little exploration or research of this topic.
Chapter 1 Facilitating Clinician Development Using Themes of Personal Issues
2014
The quality of the therapeutic relationship has been presented in the literature as a pivotal factor linked to better therapeutic outcomes (Grencravage & Norcross, 1990; Sprenkle, Davis, & Lebow, 2009). This chapter draws from the Person-of-the-Therapist Training model (POTT; Aponte & Winter, 2000) and demonstrates the use of an instrument with the goal of increasing clinicians’ awareness and acceptance of their personal issues as a way of facilitating deeper connections with their clients. The richer the relationship is with the client, the greater the clinician’s capacity is to effectively assess and intervene. This chapter is the first of two and introduces the reader to the concept of the signature theme. In the subsequent chapter, the application of signature themes to clinical work is discussed (see “Exploring the Person-of-the-Therapist for Better Joining, Assessment, and Intervention” in this volume).
Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 2017
The Person-of-the-Therapist Training (POTT) model has been developing and evolving since the late seventies. The current study explored the relationship between the personal self-ofthe-therapist and the professional self-of-the-therapist within the POTT. A directed content analysis of the 18 trainees' final reflection papers at the end of a 9-month POTT was conducted. Findings suggest that even though the training's goal is improving trainees' ability to use their selves in therapy, changes in the therapist's self appear to expand to other areas in the therapist's life. Thus, the road to becoming a more effective therapist goes through personal changes, specifically self-awareness and the acceptance of one's own struggles and imperfections. Implications for training and future research are discussed.