Undergoing Mandatory Personal Therapy for counselors

MANDATORY PERSONAL THERAPY FOR COUNSELORS 4

UndergoingMandatory Personal Therapy for counselors

UndergoingMandatory Personal Therapy for Counselors

Beingable to undergo your personal therapy as a counselor I believe is themost important process in improving your abilities and the overallcounseling process that your clients will go through. Therefore,based on the reasons below, as a therapist whether you are justbeginning or experienced, you should continually experience yourtherapy because of the benefits you and the clients stand to gain.

Increasesempathy for the client

Undergoingyour therapy increases your empathy towards the clients becausecounseling involves asking the clients to open up and reveal theirwhole lives to the counselor. Further, sometimes the counselor can bevery demanding of the client without acknowledging the difficulty theclient may be encountering in revealing their lives. Hence,counselors who have had firsthand experience of their therapy willshow empathy to the client and be more patient respecting eachclient’s pace and prepare for possible outcome uncertainty of thepractice particularly if they are just beginning.

Enrichestherapy

Personaltherapy provides an immediate source of self-knowledge about thetherapy hence the counselor can receive reliable response data fromtheir responses. Consequently, the process later enhances thecounselors’ ability to project and identify what clients feel todiscern what is comfortable and uncomfortable which is a vitalcounseling knowledge.

Self-knowledgeprevents harm to the client

Theprocess equips the counselor with the vital self-knowledge that helpsin complying with ethics code that expects the counselor to cause noharm to the client and that the counselor is fully cognizant of theirattitudes, behaviors, and values to stop the imposition of valuesmisaligned to therapy objective. As such, personal therapy revealspotential countertransference sources with the client and equips thebeginner counselor to be in the know of their blind spots, biases andneurotic issues in the clinical work (Malikiosi-Loizos,2013).

Preventsharm to the client through Self-care and ends Stigmatization

Counselingcode of ethics also demands that counselors are fully alert to anysigns of personal impairment they could be experiencing such asemotional, physical and mental problems hence stop their practice ifthe impairment will likely harm the client, yet it is throughpersonal therapy that these can be determined. Besides, undergoingpersonal therapy will help in ending the current stigma associatedwith it since many practitioners perceive it as being incompetent inthe clinical work. Moreover, to help end the stigma most of ourclients face, we should be more willing to undergo through it so thatthe society is encouraged to seek our help more since it is not asign of weakness when we also experience it regularly.

Conclusion

Undergoingyour therapy should be mandatory because of the deep self-knowledgethe beginner counselor stands to gain from it to prevent potentialharm that the client may suffer. Furthermore, the process stands toend the current stigmatization associated with seeking clinicalcounseling.

Reference

Malikiosi-Loizos,M. (2013). Personal therapy for future therapists: Reflections on astill debated issue. TheEuropean Journal of Counselling Psychology,2(1).