Developing reflective skills through personal psychoanalytic therapy
(2023) 54th international annual meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research — Location: Dublin (21.June.2023)
Files
No attached file found for this publication.
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- Aim: Despite general recognition of reflexivity as core skill for psychotherapists, there is also continuing debate about the role of personal therapy (PT) in the training and continued development of therapists. This presentation will present results from a qualitative meta-analysis on psychoanalytic therapists’ experiences with helpful and harmful aspects of PT for the development of reflective skills. Methods: Using a grounded theory meta-method, a team of researchers reviewed 17 qualitative studies on the role of personal therapy for therapists. For the purpose of this presentation, we will only highlight the results related to the role of PT for developing reflective skills in psychoanalytic therapists. Results: Therapist experience PT as helpful for increasing their self-awareness. The first subcategory focuses on how PT increases self-awareness in therapists and how this helped them to relate better and connect emotionally with patients. The second set of findings considers how PT allows to process and reflect upon the impact of patient’s stories, emotions and behavior in a way that is different from supervision. Finally, in describing the third subcategory, we present an understanding of PT as helping to distinguish between one’s own feelings and the patient’s feelings. Discussion: We consider how these findings can contribute to the debate about the role of PT in the context of therapy training. In addition, we will mention the ethical complexities that come with PT as compulsory part of therapy training and some of the reported negative effects of PT.
- Affiliations
Citations
Willemsen, J. (2023). Developing reflective skills through personal psychoanalytic therapy. 54th international annual meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, Dublin. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/31178