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Playing Detective – Or, is it ever really about the toothpaste?

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Psychotherapy is often like being a detective.  In learning how to be a psychotherapist we go on the hunt for what is the underlying meaning beneath the narrative the client brings. I often find myself thinking as I’m listening to a client describe their week – and a key event that has them troubled in some way – what is this person telling me?  What is this really about?  Eric Berne referred to his process as learning to speak Martian.

Supervision in Psychotherapy

Supervision in psychotherapy is where we can take our professional questions about our work.  In the beginning of our practice it is about learning how to be a psychotherapist with one to one support of another experienced psychotherapist.  Supervision is for learning and development, and for support.

Talking about listening for the underlying meaning is something I do with some of the people I supervise.  As they are learning how to be a psychotherapist, I will often talk about how we can be distracted from the meaning of what a client is telling us by the subject matter of the narrative.  One of the important developments for new therapists is learning to listen to the subtext.  Therefore to focus on the underlying psychological process rather than the happenings in the story.

Here’s an example composed from several typical stories from my clients to illustrate what I mean.

Is it really about the toothpaste?

Let’s suppose I have a client who comes and talks to me about how angry she is over the way her partner leaves the top off the toothpaste.  She finds this a revolting mess, and hates finding toothpaste all over the side of the sink. She tells me about her seething resentment and anger at having to clean up after her partner again. That it’s not fair that she always has to do this. She describes how she has spoken to her partner about this, but it just gets laughed off as unimportant.

How do we approach this kind of question therapeutically?  One way would be to look at alternative strategies around the toothpaste.  I might make suggestions to “problem solve” the toothpaste question.  I could suggest buying two tubes of toothpaste. I could encourage my client to talk to her partner and tell her how she feels.  We could work on my client finding a way to be more relaxed about mess.  All of these approaches might go some way to helping my client.  However as someone who is interested in speaking Martian with my clients I think about the underlying psychological process.

What is the underlying psychological process?

Therefore this means I will explore with her how this experience might remind her of her history.  We talk about how she feels when she cleans the sink yet again.  We make connections and see patterns in her experiencing of the world. We begin to understand that this is connected to being the eldest child in a family with four siblings.  What it felt like to be the one to tidy up after the other younger children.

So, the messy toothpaste in the present day is a powerful psychological reminder of the past.  Of a particularly difficult experience of being a child oneself and being made responsible for the tidiness of younger siblings, when you have no adult power to do so.  Of other memories as a teenager where her sisters would come into her room and mess about with her clothes and make-up and make a mess.  How powerless again she felt to do anything about this because parents would just tell her to “laugh it off because they’re only playing.”

Past and Present Day

We can look at what is happening today with my client’s partner with a fresh eye.   Connections between past and present can be explored.   We may see that this is not really about the top on the toothpaste. It is about how important it is for my client to be  listened to when her parents didn’t. About feeling that her needs are being recognised, heard and met.  About not feeling like the responsibility is always hers to tidy up another’s mess.

Next Steps?

Does this example interest you?  Would you like the task of uncovering how the past can be influencing our relationships in the present?  So, sometimes we get to play detective and the role of psychotherapist is to help the people we work with to understand how history and the present may converge.  That sometimes it’s really not about the toothpaste.

Does this sound like the kind of work that appeals to you?  If so, you could take our email challenge which is to help people explore more about themselves in thinking about psychotherapy as a career.  Or, why not contact us using the form below for a further discussion about training and learning how to be a psychotherapist.

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Who Trains to Be a Psychotherapist?

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Supervision GroupAre you thinking that you might be interested in training as a psychotherapist or a counsellor? Wondering if this is the kind of work you might enjoy? Or if it’s for you?  One of the questions people often ask is,  “who trains to be a psychotherapist?”  They also want to know if people who apply come from a particular background, or employment history.  I will answer this last question first.  Whilst it can help to have previous experience in working with people in some kind of helping role, it is not essential.  Training to be a psychotherapist is as much about the kind of person you are, and mindset you have, as it is about having previous relevant job experience.  Let me talk you through some of the qualities we look for when we are accepting applications on to our training programme.

Having an Enquiring Mind

Curiosity, and having an enquiring mind are important qualities of being a psychotherapist.  Are you interested in people, why people think, feel and behave in the ways they do?  Do you want to understand ways of making sense of human behaviour?  Behaviour is so often a result of the underlying thoughts and feeling we may have about a situation. Sometimes those thoughts and feelings can be just outside of our awareness.  Or they can be more deeply buried in our unconscious.  As a psychotherapist one of your tasks is to facilitate people in uncovering their deeper thoughts, feelings and motivations regarding their behaviour.  So, it helps to be interested and curious in people because part of the role is to question and enquire about such things. Are you interested in asking questions like how and why?

Self-Directed Learning.

Other qualities that are important in who trains to be a psychotherapist is self-motivation and enjoyment of learning.  Training to work as a psychotherapist involves the acquisition of theoretical knowledge, practical experience in working with clients and self-development and awareness.  Because each person begins training with their own history and experience, each person’s journey will be different.

Secondly, as you set out on the training you will discover areas of the work that interest you more than others. You may develop a specialism in working with a specific group of clients, or want to work in a particular way.  Because of this, being willing and interested in developing your own learning journey is an important part of the training.  You will want to seek out and find your own sources of learning.  This might be in the form of additional training, with a supervisor with a relevant area of expertise, through research and reading. Therefore, you will need to be self-motivated and proactive.

Self-Development

The next area I am going to talk about is that of self-development.  You will need to have a keen interest and be committed to your own self development.  These are important qualities in who trains to be a psychotherapist.  A very big part of training as a therapist is about self-knowledge.  This is because therapists need to have enough emotional competence and internal resources to engage with the demands of the training and the work of psychotherapy.

Emotional competence is about understanding feelings.  It is also about how to express feelings appropriately and use them to inform your thinking.  Internal resources are about being ok with people who may be distressed.  It is also about recognising when you need help yourself.  How can we help others to know themselves if we do not understand ourselves?  So, most training will include a requirement for personal therapy.  Therefore, it is very important that you are willing to explore all aspects of yourself.  This includes your less positive attributes and qualities.  You can also use therapy to build more emotional competence and your internal resources.

Non-Judgemental Stance

Working as therapist will bring you into contact with a very wide range of people from different circumstances and backgrounds.  You do not need to know all about different cultures, religions and contexts.  To be a competent therapist you will need to have some awareness and sensitivity in relation to the political, socio-cultural and religious or spiritual contexts of people’s lives and how different they can be.  As well as this sensitivity you will also have some awareness of prejudice and the many forms it can take.  You will also need the ability to respond openly and without judgement to questions of race, gender, age, sexual preference, cultural difference, and diversity for example.

Self-Reflection

The final quality in this post about who trains to be a psychotherapist, is that of self-reflection.  Part of the task of the therapist is to think about their work, their clients and themselves because this is one of the ways we can learn about our work and practice and improve it.  Reflective practice is a skill that can be developed.  It is attended to during training in a variety of different ways; journaling, discussions and supervision are examples of reflection in practice.

Next Steps?

If you have found this a helpful post and want to take the next step then you can:

Sign up to our Five-Day Email Challenge.  Starting in January, we will be sending you an email a day for five days with a series of question and tasks based on this post.  Click here to sign up for the challenge.

Contact us for an interview for entry on to our next intake of students in September 2019.

Book on to the next TA101 course.  The TA101 is a great way to find out more about studying a psychological model.  It is also a personal development course so will be a great way of understanding yourself and others better.

Contact us for an informal discussion of career options.

 

What to expect on psychotherapy training

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Fish jumpingIf you are considering a career change to working as a psychotherapist this post is for you.  You will find out what to expect on psychotherapy training and particularly transactional analysis training.

Firstly, there are different approaches to training.

Types of  Psychotherapy Training Course

The academic model in a university is different to an apprenticeship or competency-based model. Both models are based on meeting requirements.  These will be a mixture of demonstrating competency, attaining certain skills and meeting specific requirements.

An academic model the training is driven by academic years or a set timescale.  With this approach students/trainees are tasked with achieving skills and  completing tasks within a set time-frame.  In an apprenticeship models of training the meeting of the requirements are not linked to a specific timescale.  The latter model can offer a great deal of flexibility in the process towards the goal of qualification.

The length of time of training and the emphasis on theory teaching and clinical practice can vary according to the modality or type of psychotherapy being studied.  In general however there are five main areas to think about.  Thinking about what to expect on psychotherapy training, the first area is learning about theory or studying a psychological model.

A Psychological Model

A psychological model or modality of psychotherapy is usually a set of theories and ideas about people and their psychology.  Transactional analysis psychotherapy has theories about personality structure, child development, communication and relationship, groups. It also has set of theories about psychopathology.  In more straightforward language,  theory about how psychology can be problematic and mean that people have difficulties in living their lives.  It is important in considering which training to choose that the model you select holds some fundamental truths for you.  It needs to “makes sense” to you, so that you are studying a model that is congruent with your beliefs and values about people and how they function.  In studying a psychological model the tasks will be to learn and understand the key theoretical concepts that are are part of the theory, and to understand how to apply them in working with clients.

Clinical practice – Seeing clients under supervision

The second aspect of training is that of gaining experience in working with clients. This is always done under supervision by a more experienced therapist.

Before seeing clients, trainees are usually asked to demonstrate that they can use counselling skills effectively to problem solve in a counselling situation.  You will also need to show that you have a general foundation level of understanding of TA.  Then you will begin to offer counselling and psychotherapy to your own clients.  Most people usually beginning with two of three clients a week and build this slowly.  You will attend supervision and play tapes to your supervisor of you working with your clients. Sometimes you will simply discuss the work you are doing.  Supervision is a teaching and learning activity for the development of the trainee’s skill and competence in clinical work.

Personal Therapy – developing understanding of self, self-awareness and reflexivity.

Personal therapy and personal development is another key aspect of the training to work as a psychotherapist because self-awareness and self-knowledge are important qualities in an effective practitioner.  Many courses will have a requirement for trainees to engage in a period of personal therapy.  Some courses will require that therapy is for the duration of training.  The purpose of therapy is to provide a significant experience of therapy.  The therapist needs to have experienced therapy that is similar to the work they will be doing. Personal therapy is also for the support of the practitioner because the work can have an emotional and psychological impact.  Working through one’s own personal psychological material helps us to be able to effectively work with others.  Finally a good psychotherapist will have a consistent and robust habit of reflection because it supports their ongoing development and learning.

So, in addition to studying theory and seeing clients, what else can you expect on psychotherapy training?

Professional development

Even as a trainee once you begin seeing clients part of your development is to begin to develop your own specific areas of interest. Some of this might be in the form of specific shorter training. It might also be through reading, workshops, conferences and supervision.  There are a variety of activities that can fall in to this category and all are about how you choose to develop your interests as a practitioner.  So examples of what this might look like could be developing an interest in another modality perhaps CBT or EMDR.  It might be about working with a specific client group or a particular way of working for example outdoor therapy.

Mental health placement

Part of the requirement for psychotherapists in the uk is to be familiar with the management and treatment of mental health in the uk because there will be times when you may need to refer clients on to other professionals.   The mental health placement will involve you meeting a variety of people. Including  service users with more severe mental health problems, staff who work with people in this area and gaining an understanding of the services available and approaches used.

Next Steps?

Training to work as a psychotherapist involves a wide education including the development of theoretical knowledge and understanding, broad clinical experience and personal development through self-awareness and self-knowledge. It is about developing as a professional with all the experience, skill, ethical awareness and responsibility that entails, along with the rich rewards of a stimulating and rewarding field of work.

Now you have a better ideas about what to expect on psychotherapy training what are the next steps?

Introduction to TAA TA101 is a great way to experience studying a psychological model, go to our events page to check out the next date. Or read about this two day course here.

Sign up for our 5 day email challenge beginning in the New Year. We will be running a 5 day email challenge in January 2019 with a series of questions for you to consider, reflect and journal about. Your answers will help you decide if this might be the career for you. Sign up here.

Or, if you would like to find out more about this type of training and career then we offer free informal chat with one of our trainers.  Contact us below to arrange a time and date.

Open Day – Train as a Psychotherapist

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So, you think you might want to begin psychotherapy training?

Clinical trainingCareer Change

You probably have lots of questions as you think about making this potential career change with psychotherapy training. TA Training Organisation are having an Open Day on Saturday 21st July 10.30am until 1pm for prospective trainees.  You can come along, see the training centre, meet us and ask any questions before taking the step of applying.

For many people psychotherapy training  is a career change.  Making such a significant life change we thought it might be helpful for people to meet us prior to applying are so that you can find out if psychotherapy might be the career for you.  Psychotherapy is often a second career for people particularly in the UK.  For example, Lin had a 20 year successful career in sales and marketing before she set up her private practice.  Andy worked in hotels and schools in management positions.

Open Day

What is the plan for the Open Day? Here are some of the items on our agenda.

We will be talking about the kind of person who trains to be a therapist and what some of the longer-term career options look like that are available.

We will also talk about what is involved in training to be a therapist.  Learning about theory which involves studying a psychological model.  We will outline some of the requirements that are involved outside of the taught elements. For example, seeing clients, having supervision and your own personal therapy.

There will be some thoughts from us on the different kinds of training that is available.  We will talk about the difference between going to a university  or attending a smaller training institute owned, run and managed by practising psychotherapists.

We will tell you about the training course we offer at TA Training Organisation in Horsforth, Leeds.  Our ethos and philosophy and what it would be like to train with us now – group sizes, facilities available.

Finally, both Lin and Andy will do a short teach on a TA topic to give you a taste of the type of thing you can expect on the programme we run.

Book Your Place

This is a great opportunity to find out more and get your questions answered if you are thinking about this career change.  Reserve a place on the Open Day now and we look forward to meeting you soon.

If you would like to come along, please do get in touch and let us know you are attending by booking a ticket using the button below – so we can make sure we allow enough time for your questions.

Book Tickets

Favourite Quotes and Ideas about Ego State Theory

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child ego state

Ego state theory is one of the models in TA theory I use regularly in my work with clients and in supervision.  It’s one of the ideas in TA that immediately resonates with clients. In its simplest form it is easy to understand and apply to self with some degree of accuracy.  In this post I thought I would share some of my favourite quotes, definitions and ideas about ego state theory.

As many of you will know Eric Berne’s background was as a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. His work means that  transactional analysis theory has a psychoanalytic heritage.  Berne was familiar with the work of ego psychologists Fairbairn and Federn. They were writing about ego states in the 1950’s.

Berne’s significant contribution to ego state theory was that ego states are being experienced internally. In addition, categories of ego states have specific sets of behaviours that are consistent with these internal states. By observing patterns in behaviour, the therapist can begin to form a view of the ego state of the person.

Definitions, Quotes and a Few Important Terms

“Exteropsyche,neopsyche, and archaeopsyche are regarded as psychic organs. And which manifest themselves phenomenologically as exteropsychic (e.g. identificatory), neopsychic (e.g. data processing), and archaeopsychic (e.g. regressive) ego states.  These types of ego states are referred to as Parent, Adult, and Child.” Berne (1961 p23)

Transactional analysis’ psychoanalytic roots can be seen in this quote where Berne is referring to psychic organs. These are a metaphor or a way of describing a psychological or mental process. Mental processes which then show themselves in what he describes as Parent Adult Child.

Ego states:

“are coherent systems of thought and feeling manifested by corresponding patterns of behaviour.”  Berne (1974)

This particular quote highlights the link between behaviour as something that corresponds to a pattern of thinking and feeling. Therefore, if we begin to identify patterns in behaviour we can begin to understand the thinking and feeling.  This idea helps us begin to identify discrete psychological processes linked to stimuli.

Parent Ego State

A Parental ego state is a set of feelings, attitudes and behaviour patterns which resemble a parental figure.” (1961 p75)

“Parent is exhibited in two forms, direct and as an influence.” Berne (1964)

This idea of the Parent ego state as an influence, is highlighting that when the Child ego state is cathected there will be a part of Parent that is also active in the form of an influence.  An internally experienced replay of an aspect of Parent, possibly offering helpful structure or nurture or in the negative aspects of Parent, control and criticism.

“Parent ego states are an actual historical internalisation of the personality of one’s own parents or other significant parental figures as perceived by the child at the time of introjection.” Erskine (2003 p89)

Erskine is offering the view  that Parent content at the moment of introjection is as perceived by Child. This explains the punitive, critical and sometimes frightening nature of the content of Parent ego state.

Adult Ego State

“The Adult ego state is characterised by an autonomous set of feelings, attitudes, and behaviour patterns which are adapted to the current reality.” Berne (1961 p76)

“When in the Adult ego, a person is in full contact with what is occurring in a manner appropriate to that developmental age.  This neopsychic (current mind) function of the ego accounts for and integrates: 1) what is occurring moment-by-moment internally and externally, 2) past experiences and their resulting effects, and 3) the psychological influences and identifications with other significant people in one’s life.” Erskine (2003)

The idea of the integrating function. Adult draws on Parent and Child content and sifts it for usefulness and applicability in the current reality.

Child Ego State

“The Child ego state is a set of feelings, attitudes and behaviour pattern which are relics of the individual’s own childhood.” (Berne 1961 p77)

“Each person carries within a little boy or little girl, who feels, thinks, acts, talks, and responds just the way he or she did when he or she was a child of a certain age.” Berne (1974 p31)

“a system linked to the organisation of instinctual drives, basic needs and primary emotional experiences” (Tudor2002 p10)

Introjection.  Process of identification and internalisation of the experience of another including perceived thoughts feeling and behaviours.

Berne talked of Child as being about primary process, a psychoanalytic term used by Freud and as Tudor describes above instinctual needs and drives.

Contamination

Contamination of Ego states occurs when the solidity of the barrier around the Adult ego state breaks down and beliefs from the either the Parent or Child ego states, or both “contaminate” Adult ego state functioning. I.e. the person is using thoughts/feelings and experience from either Parent or Child to problem solve in the present without reality testing their relevance, accuracy and applicability.  This means that the Integrating function of the Adult is affected by unfiltered content.

Executive

Identifies the ego state that is the one that is in control. That is where the majority of the person’s energy is. It is also the ego state which is dictating the patterns of thinking feeling and behaviour.

What this hinting at is that we are rarely ever completely in only one ego state.  Often even though in the main it is the Adult ego state that is cathected, content in Child and Parent might be active. An example of all three ego states being active whilst the Adult remains in the executive:

Being asked to give a speech at the National TA Conference, I may be feeling a whole range of things:

  • confident and well prepared to speak in public
  • I will also be experiencing my Parent ego state giving me messages about “always getting things right”.
  • I can also, and at the same time, be nervous and scared.

So, these are some of my favourite quotes and ideas – what are yours?  What aspect of ego state theory do you make most of in your practice?  I’d love to hear from you.

And, if these ideas are new to you and you’ve found them useful then maybe you’d like to find out more.  Our TA101 course is a first introduction to TA and is a great beginning .

Contracts and Contracting

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Lin Cheung talks about contracts and contracting and their importance within the transactional analysis model.

What is contracting?

Contracting is one of the key principles of how we work as transactional analysts. As they say “If you are not contracting, you aren’t doing TA” This is a really interesting idea but what does it mean?

I think its about being clear about what we are doing and why we are doing it. And that its not just me that is clear about that but also the person I am working with. It applies across the board, whether we are in an organisation working as a coach, if we are doing organisational consultancy, if we are a psychotherapist, if we are a counsellor. Its about being clear and not having any confusion about what we are here to do and what the end outcome is.

Charlotte Sills uses the word ‘confusion’ and I really like that idea. What we are seeking is clarity. This doesn’t necessarily happen straight away and can often be emergent. Moment by moment we are seeking clarity – ‘What does this mean to me right now?’

Our clients often come to us, as psychotherapists, without a sense of what they are seeking and a big part of what we are there to do is to help them work it out for themselves and then to have a shared idea of the goals of psychotherapy and how we are going to get there.

That is contracting for me.

We explore contracts and contracting in our Foundation Certificate course which runs each academic year, September – July.