Another excellent article, Rosey. I was a therapist for about 12 years, mostly in a community mental health center, but also some private practice and a brief stint working for a large managed mental health company (ugh!). I think you're spot on with your assessment of the MH professions. I do think that, for some people, the traditional therapist/client relationship works just fine, and the client benefits to an extent that they emerge happier and better able to function day to day. Brief therapy modalities do good things for people going through difficult life events such as divorce, death of a loved one, and such. Deeper exploration into more pervasive mental problems does require keener self-awareness and depth of presence on the part of the therapist that, sadly, many therapists simply do not have, and have no interest in attaining. When I was in training, we were told that as a therapist, you should get "supervision", which meant being in therapy yourself to address your own MH issues that affect your ability to help your clients. There was no suggestion as to how that really worked, or what that "supervision" would look like. At times, it seemed like the blind leading the blind. I must say, though, that my experience in grad school was not all MH dogma - there were professors who encouraged exploration into less traditional modalities. When I was in practice, I was pretty much of a traditionalist, but I have come to learn that so-called "alternative" treatment modalities can be immensely helpful in the same ways that traditional modalities are intended to be. You seem to have come to that conclusion, too, obviously. I think it would be great if therapists availed themselves to some of the alternative modalities for themselves as a tool for improving their ability to help their clients (i.e. supervision). I decided to get out of the therapist role about 20 years ago, largely because of burn out. I wonder if that would have happened if I had sought non-traditional supervision. Hmmm...
Another excellent article, Rosey. I was a therapist for about 12 years, mostly in a community mental health center, but also some private practice and a brief stint working for a large managed mental health company (ugh!). I think you're spot on with your assessment of the MH professions. I do think that, for some people, the traditional therapist/client relationship works just fine, and the client benefits to an extent that they emerge happier and better able to function day to day. Brief therapy modalities do good things for people going through difficult life events such as divorce, death of a loved one, and such. Deeper exploration into more pervasive mental problems does require keener self-awareness and depth of presence on the part of the therapist that, sadly, many therapists simply do not have, and have no interest in attaining. When I was in training, we were told that as a therapist, you should get "supervision", which meant being in therapy yourself to address your own MH issues that affect your ability to help your clients. There was no suggestion as to how that really worked, or what that "supervision" would look like. At times, it seemed like the blind leading the blind. I must say, though, that my experience in grad school was not all MH dogma - there were professors who encouraged exploration into less traditional modalities. When I was in practice, I was pretty much of a traditionalist, but I have come to learn that so-called "alternative" treatment modalities can be immensely helpful in the same ways that traditional modalities are intended to be. You seem to have come to that conclusion, too, obviously. I think it would be great if therapists availed themselves to some of the alternative modalities for themselves as a tool for improving their ability to help their clients (i.e. supervision). I decided to get out of the therapist role about 20 years ago, largely because of burn out. I wonder if that would have happened if I had sought non-traditional supervision. Hmmm...