Personal therapy (A guide)

In this brief blog, we will be discussing personal therapy, the role of personal therapy, personal therapy in college counselling, and more information about personal therapy.

What Is Personal Therapy?

Personal therapy is the kind of therapy done by student therapies before they are evaluated to be ready for taking therapies to clients.

This kind of therapy allows student therapists to know their weaknesses and strengths in the therapy session. 

There are a lot of advantages in engaging in personal therapy in counselling.

This is because this allows the student to know how much he or she has learned how to implement therapy for any kind of client.

Reading about therapies and how they work are only small aspects of what constitutes therapy.

Personal therapy can help student therapists realize what they need to do in therapy and know when they will ned therapy.

Student therapists will also learn about how to be personal and professional in personal therapy.

This can help them reduce the ethical violations they could make if they make one aspect dominant than the other.

Goals Of Personal Therapy

Setting goals is crucial before starting therapy. The unpreparedness of these goals can backfire the meaning of therapy. 

Goal setting is not only vital for therapists in their therapy sessions but it also helps them rehabilitate when they are facing mental health complications.

Since you are the therapist, you should be setting attainable aims in the therapy session with your client. 

There are many expectations of the client that can make you reassess how you handle your therapy session and you may stray away from your goals in therapy.

Theories of therapies don’t get only one goal of therapy but they get several and some of these theories are more typical than others. 

These goals can act as guidelines to help your client get the most benefits from therapy.

The following are the most typical goals in any therapy:

• Facilitating behavioural change.
• Helping enhance the client’s ability to both build and maintain relationships.
• Helping enhance the client’s effectiveness and their ability to deal with difficult situations
• Helping promote the decision-making process while guiding client potential.
• Development.

You can learn more about the purposes in therapy by buying this book on this website.

Role Of Personal Therapy To Trainee Therapists

There is little research on how meaningful the role of this therapy is to trainee therapists.

Most of these studies are only reporting what the opinions of most trainees who have either experienced this kind of therapy or not.

You should be reminded that these kinds of studies have been compromised since they have been on studies that had confounding variables and small sample sizes but there is still a need to draw conclusions from these kinds of studies.

There is little vital evidence that can prove that this kind of therapy can be beneficial for clients.

Although this kind of therapy has shown more benefits in trainee therapists, especially an improvement in their traits as a therapist.

There is still a need to understand the theoretical implications of this therapy to be administered in future studies.

There is also a need to just understand the process of this therapy and not the results the clients have shown.

This kind of therapy has become an important phase to take for a trainee therapist to become a therapist

Reasons Why Student Therapists Should Have This Requirement

This kind of therapy is considered to be an obligated requirement for students who are going to become therapists or counsellors.

This kind of therapy should be mastered in a master’s study in counselling and therapy.

This kind of therapy should be placed obligatory for trainee therapists and trainee counsellors as well with changes in the requirements that would relieve the demands made on students to master this therapy.

This kind of therapy has made future therapists to become more acquainted to therapy and more engaging to clients.

This kind of therapy makes the therapist have more credibility since they have already experienced what really happens in the therapy session.

After all, it is quite tough if you have no idea what you’re going to do in a therapy session if you don’t have that kind of experience.

The following are the reasons for implementing this kind of therapy

• Gain self-knowledge
• Sensitization of counter-transference
• Increases empathy to clients
• Uses therapy for personal growth
• Reduce vulnerability to depression

You can learn more about this kind of therapy by buying this book on this website.

Gaining Self-Knowledge From Therapy

As mentioned before, therapy theories only take you in a limited distance from your goal.

You can easily get the trust from your client if you are involved with him or her in an almost personal way.

You can start using your own vulnerabilities and intuitions that you have derived from your experience in this therapy.

In this therapy, you are more likely to accept your strengths and weaknesses and you can also do this with your client.

This therapy makes trainee therapists be their own clients in their made-up therapy.

This can allow them to know what feels like at the recipient end of the therapeutic relationship.

Trainee therapists who engage in this therapy can know more about themselves such as their triggers and they can easily apply their strengths in the therapy session and trying to compensate as much as possible to weaknesses they have learned from themselves.

 Sensitization To Counter-Transference

In this therapy, you are given the opportunity to work on your pain that you might be holding back from now.

This situation can occur if you are a therapist who might engage in counter-transference which is the act of placing harsh thoughts and feelings to a client due to the client’s story. 

This concern is very rampant in the community of therapists.

This can make therapists blind in distinguishing client’s responses to their own in a similar situation.

There are techniques that a therapist can apply if they want to remain objective in therapy sessions.

Trainee therapists who engage in this therapy were more likely to deal with their complications in this made-up therapy.

This can help future therapists to keep their sensitivities reduced in the midst of a therapy session.

You can learn more about countertransference as a concern in therapy by buying this book on this website.

Increases Empathy To Clients

It is very vital for a therapist to understand what it’s like to be the client in a therapy session.

This can help them know what a client initially feels starting out the first therapy session and moving on with the most sensitive part of all therapy sessions which is the letting of our vulnerabilities to a listener. 

When we are able to be active in therapy, we will learn what the client might feel from one session to the next.

This can allow them to know what needs to be done to get into the client’s openness since we know what can bring us out in the open.

Using Therapy For Personal Growth

Therapy, as mentioned before, can help you find yourself growing by still being you.

You are able to learn more about yourself with therapy and be able to use yourself in the best possible ways despite the worst in yourself. 

This therapy can allow trainees to be their own strengths and motivators once they have come to accept themselves in therapy and grow resilient in stressful situations.

Even those trainees who are considered strong can still take this therapy if they are feeling a weak spot in their wellbeing.

This therapy can help trainees to talk about themselves since this is useful when they start listening to the client all throughout therapy sessions.

With this knowledge, the trainee becomes sensitive in the therapy room which can serve as a release for inner tensions. 

This will allow them to know about their sensitive sides and how some situations can bring them to the darks sides of their personalities.

You can also achieve personal growth through self-help strategies by buying this book on this website.

Reduce Therapist’s Vulnerability To Depression

There were a lot of trainees that have been found to suffer from depression when they got into this therapy.

This therapy allowed them to share the expanse of their low mood which allowed them to release the darkness that has been trapped within them. 

These sensitivities act as motivations for these future therapists but these also allow them to empathize with the client which can lead to heavy emotional attachment.

In this case, therapy should be maintained with these future therapists to help them still manage to be great therapists for their clients and be more capable to be resilient in their own troubles. 

Reflections Of Future Therapists On Personal Therapy

The issue of personal therapy in the training of counsellors and counselling psychologists has long been counterproductive and is still being discussed by concerned professionals.

Studies may have shown that this kind of therapy has helped trainees know about themselves and apply the proper therapy procedures, some are still arguing that this therapy shouldn’t be mandatory. 

Others are still convinced that this kind of therapy can serve to be an evaluation for therapists that are qualified or not to engage in this kind of career.

In other countries in Europe, some are even suggesting that there should be a required number of hours of taking this kind of therapy for future therapists. 

In others, only specific training programs are having this kind of requirement.

Some honorary organisations in the mental health field are having this kind of requirement in therapists to make sure that they fit the status quo of therapists who are mature and experienced. 

Most trainee therapists are fond of this therapy in their academic programs since it allowed them to be more confident in administering their own therapy in the future.

Aside from therapy, you can learn more ways on how to develop yourself and make yourself the best version by buying this book here.

Conclusion

In this brief blog, we have discussed personal therapy, the role of personal therapy, personal therapy in college counselling, and more information about personal therapy.

If you have any questions about personal therapy, please let us know and the team will gladly answer your queries

FAQs: personal therapy

Citations

EJCOP. Personal Therapy for Future Therapists: Reflections on a Still Debated Issue.

NCBI. The role of personal therapy for therapists: a review.

PsychCentral. Personal Therapy for the Student Therapist.

Taylor & Francis Online. Personal therapy as a mandatory requirement for counselling psychologists in training: A qualitative study of the impact of therapy on trainees’ personal and professional development.