Posted by pegasus on June 14, 2011, at 10:12:07
I recently got embroiled in a debate about whether it should be required in psych and counseling grad programs that students experience their own therapy. Apparently, there is no clear evidence that having been a client makes a T more effective. Mind you, there is also no clear evidence that it *doesn't* make Ts more effective, either. It's just that the research is very sketchy, and inconclusive at this point. I expect that's because it's a very tricky thing to study, with lots of variables that are hard to control.
The thing that surprises me is that a bunch of folks are saying that, because there isn't any conclusive evidence that having been a client makes you a more effective T, this requirement should be dropped from the programs that have it. The argument is that, since it might not contribute to making you a more effective T, it's burdensome on the students to insist on that requirement.
Complicating the debate, IMHO, is the fact that many programs don't have such a requirement. So, there are many Ts out there who have never undergone their own psychotherapy of any sort. And people tend to think that their own experience is best. So, the Ts who have never been clients are pretty vocal about how that that experience isn't necessary. And even that maybe people who have had a therapy could be less qualified to be Ts (I guess because they might be mentally ill). And the Ts who have had therapy are vocal about how that experience has been really helpful to them as Ts.
What do you guys, as clients, think? If you knew that your T had never experienced any type of therapy as a client, would that bother you, or give you more confidence in them (because they never needed therapy), or what?
My bias is that I wouldn't want to work with a T who had never been a client. I would expect that they would not be sufficiently sensitive to how vulnerable I feel.
- p
poster:pegasus
thread:988066
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20110511/msgs/988066.html