Personal Therapy and the Student Therapist

Abstract

The effect of a therapist's personal psychotherapy on patient therapy outcome appears to be mixed. Some studies have shown that experienced, analysed therapists obtain better clinical results, but experience seems to be the important factor. Others have found no difference regardless of the therapist's personal therapy. Considerations favoring personal therapy include: awareness of the unconscious and of countertransference, increased empathy, minimizing blind spots, validating theory and method by first hand experience, and understanding how one's own defenses interfere with the therapeutic process. Those against personal therapy affirm there is no direct effect on competence, and there may even be detrimental effects (during residency); for example, inexperienced therapists in personal therapy appear to be less available to their patients because of their own preoccupations. Students’ tendencies to identify with their analysts and pressure to conform in an analytic milieu might tend to decrease the number of therapists with varied orientations. The boundary between supervision and personal therapy is often unclear. In both, similar techniques may be used, but the goal of supervision should be to help the student to understand emotional problems and resistances which might interfere with the therapeutic process. Supervisors should make a compromise between purely didactic and therapeutic approaches. Despite the lack of conclusive evidence, supervisors should be encouraged to be less neutral and give advice and information to trainees who are in need of or who ask about personal therapy. “Physician, heal thyself” Book of Luke, 4:23