Self‐deception and the therapist: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experiences and understandings of therapists working with clients they describe as self‐deceptive

Abstract

The concept of self-deception offered participants a perspective for describing and understanding clients who present a range of 'difficult' attitudes and behaviours, such as evasion and denial of the 'truth' of their predicament as understood by the therapist, conflicting, and contradictory attitudes to the process of self change, avoiding taking responsibility for themselves, lack of self-understanding, withholding from engagement in therapy, and from relationship with the therapist. The findings also bring to light therapists' experiences of discomfort, frustration and anger, and feelings of incompetence when working with clients they described as self-deceptive. The construct of client's self-deception constitutes one possible interpretation but other interpretative possibilities are considered.

An in-depth exploration of the experience and sense-making of transactional analyst psychotherapists working with clients who present with Internet addiction

“…The writers conclude their findings with the following insights: therapist experience feelings of discomfort, frustration and anger, and a sense of incompetence when working with such clients; and that there was "some awareness of the possibility of the therapist's own self-deception" (p. 398). The Westland and Shinebourne (2009) findings are of particular interest, given the findings I have just discussed regarding parallel process, as it would seem plausible that parallel processes could have emerged within the interviews with the researchers. Such parallel processes can provide a rich layer of data when exploring phenomenological concerns, although they may also be a limitation in terms of the impact on the researcher's ability to analyse data.…”

“…In my introduction, I have exposed the overwhelming deficit of quantitative as well as qualitative research into the Internet addiction phenomena. Westland and Shinebourne (2009) have employed an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) methodology for investigating therapists' experience of working with clients that provides promising evidence that this approach lends itself better to a rich and in-depth exploration of therapist experience and understanding. Exploring how events and objects are experienced and how therapists makemeaning of this necessitates an interpretative activity on the part of the researcher (Smith & Osborn, 2003;Smith et al 2009); these are the dual foci of IPA.…”

“…In a recent IPA study by Westland and Shinebourne (2009) exploring self-deception and the therapist, the experiences and understandings of therapists working with clients they describe as "self-deceptive" was explored. The writers conclude their findings with the following insights: therapist experience feelings of discomfort, frustration and anger, and a sense of incompetence when working with such clients; and that there was "some awareness of the possibility of the therapist's own self-deception" (p. 398).…”

“…Published research undertaking an in-depth examination of the experience and understanding of therapists working with clients struggling with Internet addiction is virtually non-existent (Shorrock, 2012a;Shorrock, 2012b;Shorrock, 2012c). It is impossible to attain unadulterated access to the actual experience of a therapist; as researchers we are twice removed in attempting to comprehend the participants' narrative of their experience in working with a client (Westland & Shinebourne, 2009). Paradoxically, this unique vantage point provides the researcher a meta-perspective enabling an identification of the therapist's 'operative defences and self-deceptions' that were present in the original clinical encounters, and can be evident in the participant's current narrative (Churchill, 2000, p. 44).…”

Counselling Aboriginal peoples: A thematic study of counselling experiences.

“…So long as group biases persist in society, racial/ethnic matching will remain relevant to mental health services with discriminated and misunderstood populations, (p. 547) Some researchers found that there is a positive relationship between trust and progress within the counselling process. For example, Theriault and Gazzola (as cited in Westland & Shineboume, 2009) suggested that the building and maintenance of a strong relationship is viewed as the essential element o f feeling competent whereas the absence of a strong relationship has the opposite effect. Trust also supports the client to become more autonomously motivated for counselling as it strengthens the relationship between client and counsellor (Lynch et al, 2011).…”