The Soul of Therapy: The Therapist's Use of self in the Therapeutic Relationship (original) (raw)
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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 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.
Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 2014
This study premises that self-of-the-therapist work is pivotal in the development of effective therapists. However, therapy models vary in their goals for this work and the means of accomplishing them. This study presents the perspective of the person-of-the-therapist Training (POTT) model that prioritizes the ability to consciously and purposefully use the selfas-is at the moment of contact with the client over the traditional goal of therapists working to resolve their issues. A key underlying assumption of the model proposes that therapists' core issues (referred to as "signature themes") are potent resources that can be tapped into to connect, assess and intervene effectively with clients. The study presents the model and illustrates the use of signature themes in clinical work.
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.
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.
Many contributors to this volume have described the importance of the therapeutic relationship to outcome, and the complexities involved in developing and maintaining a therapeutic relationship. This chapter focuses on issues of training and supervision and asks: what training, supervision and self-supervision strategies may best facilitate the development and re®nement of cognitive therapists' interpersonal skills? We approach these questions through the framework of a new cognitive model of therapist skill development, the declarative±procedural±re¯ective (DPR) model , which: 1 enables therapists, trainers and supervisors to consider a variety of interpersonal factors and processes that go towards developing a positive, helpful therapeutic relationship 2 provides a conceptual map to pinpoint the particular area(s) of dif®culty that may be causing a therapeutic relationship to deteriorate 3 identi®es key learning processes and training strategies to enhance interpersonal skills and thereby re®ne therapeutic relationships.
The Child Therapist's Generative Use of Self
Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 2004
The therapist's use of self, much debated in psychotherapy with adult patients, has received little explicit consideration in discussions of clinical work with children. In this clinical essay, I describe a style of working with children and early adolescents in psychotherapy that makes liberal use of the therapist's “self,” both in the narrow sense of the therapist's self-disclosure and in the broader sense of the use of the therapist's personality, intuition, and affective expressiveness. My discussion focuses on two facets of therapeutic work with children: (a) the use of self in the engagement of children in the treatment process and (b) the child therapist as a source of emotional support. Although not without some risks and limitations, and always accompanied by a necessary appreciation of the unique temperament and character of each child, talking personally to children fosters the child's openness in talking with us. At moments of acute distress, many children also derive immediate, visible emotional support—and, one hopes, some lasting increment of self-acceptance —from the child therapist's generative and humanizing expressions of self.
The Use of Self from a Relational Perspective
Clinical Social Work Journal, 2007
This article explores the implications of a contemporary relational perspective on the use of self in social work practice. The author is responding to an article by Andrea Reupert, who interviewed social workers and reported they tended to see their concept of self as individualistic, autonomous, and only partially defined by others, even though social work practice focuses on person-in-environment. In this article, the author expands the concept of self and argues that a contemporary view of the therapist’s self is one that is dialogic, contextualized, decentered, and multiple. Additionally, the author suggests that this relational perspective has implications for teaching and supervision. Several clinical vignettes are provided to illustrate the concepts under discussion.