Becoming a psychotherapist: The personal nature of clinical work, emotional availability and personal allegiances.

Abstract

Becoming a psychotherapist is a challenging and exciting process. There are many important facets of training in the development of a skilled therapist. Emotional availability and personal allegiances are two interrelated areas of a therapist's development that might be underemphasized relative to other areas of training in many graduate clinical training programs. This article offers a conceptualization for emotional availability and personal allegiances, presents a view of the treatment process that places emotional availability at the center of therapeutic responsiveness, and argues that personal allegiances may limit a student-therapist's emotional availability with clients. This article addresses the concepts of emotional availability and personal allegiances primarily from a contemporary psychodynamic theoretical perspective, but key ideas from the cognitivebehavioral viewpoint are also used to illustrate their significance in a therapist's development, however. These concepts are suggested to have relevance for students, supervisors, and more seasoned therapists of varying theoretical orientations.

Challenges in Addressing Graduate Student Impairment in Academic Professional Psychology Programs

“…Zeddies (1999) said, "One of the most challenging aspects of clinical work is the necessity at times for the therapist to understand how his or her own psychological and emotional dynamics … influence the therapeutic approach with clients" (p. 229). Psychologists must function well in order to help others (Lambert & Barley, 2001).…”

Emotional availability in psychotherapy: The usefulness and validity of the Emotional Availability Scales for analyzing the psychotherapeutic relationship

“…Biringen (2010) argues that emotional availability is a fundamental aspect in all relationships, and not only for that between parent and child. The importance of emotional availability in the therapeutic relationship has been discussed by Zeddies (1999). He argued that the therapist's emotional availability is essential in order to offer the client an optimal emotional climate.…”

A preliminary study of an attraction-barrier model of patients' commitment and responses to dissatisfaction in psychotherapy.

“…We have focused on how attractions and barriers influence patients' commitment to therapy and their endorsement of accommodative strategies for coping with therapy problems. But this conceptual framework may also be useful in understanding therapists' reactions to what they perceive as dissatisfying experiences in therapy (Hilliard, Henry, & Strupp, 2000; Zeddies, 1999). If therapists perceive that a patient is difficult to work with (a negative attraction) or that they have made a relatively small investment (a trivial obstacle to ending the therapy relationship) they may feel less committed to this particular therapy relationship and they might be less likely to endorse constructive accommodation strategies for coping with therapy problems.…”