Becoming a therapist: Family dynamics and career choice.

Abstract

This study submitted psychotherapists' recalled experiences in their families of origin to intensive psychodynamic analysis. The data were collected by using the intensive interview methodology developed by Henry, Sims, and Spray. Seven male and seven female therapists reported physical and behavioral conditions in their families of origin, which suggest helpless rage and conflict over the expression and acceptance of intimacy. Their current professional functioning reflects these early family experiences, including sensitivity to interpersonal stress and need to control interpersonal relations. The results are discussed in relation to the findings of Henry and his associates.Personal motivations for choosing psychotherapy as a career have long been of interest (e.g., Freud, 1953;Roe, 1953), with conjecture centering on factors rooted in the family of origin. Formulations have focused on the relationship of personal experience in the family to professional functioning as a therapist.Menninger (1957) believed that therapists experienced emotional rejection in their families of origin. They project this history in their interest in lonely, eccentric, and unloved people. This self-concept is intolerably painful and is therefore repressed, and professional functioning provides perpetual self-healing. Ford (1963), reflecting on his experience with trainees, hypothesized that therapists undertake training to deal correctively with conflict arising out of early personal history. He cited a pattern of dominating mothers who were central to therapists' emotional and physical wellbeing and fathers who were passive and nonnurturant. Ford inferred that such childhood experiences present severe threats to the therapists' ego integrity, requiring many years of working through conflicting objects and identifications during the therapists' training.Burton (1970, 1972, 1975) conducted an oral history survey of a small sample of therapists and qualitatively analyzed their reflections. He discussed how the therapeutic interaction satisfies the therapists' own emotional needs. Like Menninger and Ford, he felt that professional functioning offers shelter from interpersonal conflicts originating in the family. Family life sensitizes the therapist to emotional pain and provides powerful personal motivation for career choice. Burton further concluded that these dynamics unconsciously restrict the therapist's efforts at conflict resolution to therapeutic encounters, at the expense of personal relationships.Relevant empirical research has appeared only within the past 8 years. Henry, Sims, and Spray (1973) confirmed that psychotherapists' family relationships were indeed stressful (e.g., physical illness, difficulties in expression of affect, adolescent struggles over independence). This history appeared to foster interpersonal sensitivity and a desire to understand human relations. However, Henry et al. did not believe that these experiences were sufficient to account for the choice of a mental health career; they were unconvinced that...

‘The power of being seen’: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of how experienced counselling psychologists describe the meaning and significance of personal therapy in clinical practice

“…In line with much of the literature on therapists' early lives (e.g. Glickhauf-Hughes & Mehlman, 1995;Racusin, Abramowitz, & Winter, 1981;Storr, 1979), several participants described adopting the role of carer within the family. In many cases, too, they spontaneously referred to a reflective part of themselves that seemed to be embedded within the need to understand difficulties in relationships within the family or their immediate social environment.…”

Personal background, motivation and interpersonal style of psychotherapy trainees having different theoretical orientations: An Italian contribution to an international collaborative study on psychotherapy training

“…The importance of personal background has been emphasised in a series of studies documenting the existence of higher rates of negative experiences in childhood of psychotherapists compared to other professionals, including traumatic experiences – such as childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, parental neglect, hospitalisation or death of a family member (Elliott & Guy, ; Nikčević, Kramolisova‐Advani & Spada, ), or psychological abandonment (Rønnestad & Skovholt, ) – and several aspects implicated in negative family functioning – such as role inversion and ambiguous communications (Fussell & Bonney, ), conflict over the expression and acceptance of intimacy (Racusin, Abramowitz & Winter, ), demanding achievement orientation in the family of origin, rigid and restraining child rearing practices, receiving conditional love from parents, and growing up in a family with a rule of no emotions (Rønnestad & Skovholt, ). However, mixed evidence has been provided regarding the influence of these personal experiences on the decision to become a psychotherapist.…”

Therapist perspectives on countertransference: Qualitative data in search of a theory.

“…Liaboe & Guy, 1987;Racusin, Abramowitz, & Winter, 1981). Therapists' needs also were a common source of countertransference (e.g., need to be needed, to control, to be right, for approval, to be a good therapist, for gratification, to be important), raising the practical and important question of what causes therapists to place their own needs ahead of clients' needs.…”