Issues faced by beginning therapists.pptx

Issues faced by beginning therapists T. LOBI Introduction  Being a beginning therapist comes with both pleasure and anxiety.  Such is brought by the demands of early practice.  For many entry psychotherapists, integrating, synthesising and adapting information can be exhausting...

Issues faced by beginning therapists T. LOBI Introduction  Being a beginning therapist comes with both pleasure and anxiety.  Such is brought by the demands of early practice.  For many entry psychotherapists, integrating, synthesising and adapting information can be exhausting.  The major catalyst for the intense stress faced by the novice is the inherent, but yet unknown to the novice, ambiguity of professional work. Issues cont…..  The following are what novice therapists struggle with:  Dealing with anxiety  Being yourself and self-disclosure  Avoiding perfectionism  Honesty about one’s limitations  Understanding silence  Dealing with demands from clients  Dealing with involuntary clients  Tolerating ambiguity  Becoming aware of one’s countertransference  Sharing responsibility with the client  Declining to give advice  Defining one’s role as a therapist  Maintaining vitality as a person and as a professional Dealing with anxiety  Most beginning therapists have mixed feelings when meeting the client for the first time  A level of anxiety demonstrates that one has an awareness of the uncertainties with regards to the client’s future in therapy with them.  A willingness to acknowledge such anxiety is a positive sign.  Self-doubts are normal, what’s important is how a person deals with it.  One way of dealing with anxiety is to openly talk about it with your supervisor and/or peers.  By so doing, one will learn that they are not the only one experiencing difficulties. Being yourself and self-disclosure  When one is self-conscious and anxious, they may be overly concerned about precision of books and techniques.  Novice therapists sometimes don’t see value in simply being themselves.  When you are yourself in therapeutic work, appropriately disclose your reactions, chances of being authentic are increased  This level of genuineness and presence enables therapists to connect with their clients well and establish effective therapeutic relationship  When thinking about self-disclosure, consider what to reveal, when to reveal, and how much to reveal. Avoiding perfectionism  This is one of the most common self-defeating beliefs that we can hold is an idea that we must never make a mistake.  Although all therapists know intellectually that humans are not perfect (including them), emotionally they often feel that there is little room for err.  To be frank, all therapists make mistakes whether they are new or experienced.  What new therapists need to realise is that they do not need to know everything and be perfectly skilled  Share your mistakes or errors during supervision, that way you we learn more. Honesty about limitations  Therapists do not succeed with every client, that would be unrealistic.  It takes honesty to admit that.  It is thus important to learn when and how to make a referral when one’s limitations prevent the client’s prognosis Understanding silence  To a beginning therapist, silent moment may feel like hours, yet such silence may have a meaning.  The client may be silently thinking about what you have been discussing  Or the client may be waiting for the therapist to take the lead and decide what’s next, while on the other hand, the therapist may be waiting on the client to do this.  Sometimes both don’t have anything to say at the moment  Or they may be communicating without words  Sometimes the silence may be overwhelming, but sometimes it can be refreshing  When silence occurs, acknowledge and explore the meaning with the client. Dealing with demands from clients  Sometimes beginning counsellors struggle to deal with demands from clients  Therapists sometimes feel they should extend themselves in being helpful  They often burden themselves with the unrealistic idea that they should do so unselfishly regardless how great client demands are  These demands may show in a variety of ways:  Client may want to see you more often or for longer period than you can provide  They want to socialise with you  They may demand you to tell them what to do in a particular situation Dealing with involuntary clients  These are clients that referred by external parties for therapy  Establishing a working relationship with them may be a challenge  For the work to be effective with these clients, therapists should openly discuss the nature of the relationship, otherwise they will encounter resistance  It is important that therapists don’t promise what they can not deliver to these clients  Be clear on the limits of confidentiality and other factors that may affect the course of therapy  Prepare them well for the process Tolerating ambiguity  For beginning therapists, the anxiety of seeing immediate results is real.  They often worry if they are doing their clients a good job  Whether the client is improving  They need to learn to tolerate ambiguity of not knowing whether the client is improving  Realise that clients may seem to get worse before they show therapeutic gains  Also realise that benefits may manifest after therapy ahs concluded Becoming aware of countertransference  Sometimes clients affect therapists in a personal way, their own vulnerabilities and countertransference may surface  If a therapist is not aware of their personal dynamics, they are in danger of being overwhelmed by clients’ emotional experiences.  Beginning therapists need to learn how to “let clients go” and carry them around until next session  Let clients assume the responsibility of their living and choosing outside the session.  In therapy, countertransference occurs when we are triggered into reacting emotionally, defensively, or when we lose our ability to be present because of our personal issues. Sharing responsibility with the client  One might struggle with optimal coping in sharing responsibility their clients  One of the biggest mistakes beginning therapists is to assume total responsibility for the outcomes of therapy  That has a propensity to take away client’s responsibility in making their own decisions  What is important is to share the responsibility with the client and collaboratively work together  By this, the client will be empowered Declining to give advice  Very often clients come to therapy seeking advice  They want more than direction, they want you to tell them what to do  However, it is important to consider that counselling is not about dispensing information  Therapy is about helping the client discover their own solutions and recognise own freedom to act  Even if we can easily solve their problems, it is in the best interest of the client to encourage their independence  Therefore the task of the therapist is to help clients make independent choices and accept the consequences of their actions. Defining your role as a therapist  One of the challenges therapists face is to define and clarify the role of the therapist  As a therapist, you can function in diverse range of roles  However, the central function of counselling is to help clients recognise their own strengths, discover what is preventing them from using their resources  Counselling is a process by which clients are invited to look honestly at their behaviour and make certain decisions about how to modify the quality of their lives. Maintaining vitality as a person and as a professional  The single most important instrument is the person you are your most powerful technique is your ability to model aliveness and realness  It means we must take care of ourselves, because if we cant take care of others we are not taking care ourselves.  It is important to learn to look at oneself to determine what choices you are making to keep yourself vital.  You have considerable control over whether you become burned out or not  Self-monitoring is the first step to self-care