I find this a really interesting issue. If you go over to the Student Doctor Network (SDN) I think you will tend to find that the significant majority of psychiatrists and psychologists are very much opposed to people who have been diagnosed with a mental disorder such as schizophrenia, bi-polar, a personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder becoming clinicians. I personally have trouble with this, and I think that it comes from a false view on the nature of mental illness.

There do seem to be a significant proportion of clinicians who think that it is okay for a person who has experienced such issues in the past to go on to be a clinician once they have made significant progress on their issues, however. I think that this is a nicer middle ground. It is one that is especially prevalent in addiction studies (the promotion of AA and NA and the idea that you have to have had experience with your own addiction in order to help others). Also prevalent with respect to sexual abuse.

There are a variety of different theoretical orientations that all purport to say what therapy is supposed to be about, and how the process of therapy is supposed to work. One view (the CBT view) is that the therapist provides education with respect to such things as cognitive restructuring. While it might be tempting to think that one cannot successfully teach another person this technique unless one is able to apply it successfully in ones own life, that simply does not follow.

I'm reminded of a professor I had who was very much a behaviorist. He taught us how to extinguish phobia. He was very good at teaching therapists the technique for exstinguishing phobia. We discovered that he had a phobia of heights. We asked him: 'Why haven't you extinguished your own phobia, or got someone else to'. He said he had no special desire to extinguish his phobia. That didn't interfere with his job, however, as whether or not he desired to extinguish his own phobia had nothing to do with his ability to help others extinguish their phobia *if they so desired to*.

Fortunately, there are a variety of theoretical orientations and techniques that one can find ones niche in. I think that quite often there are therapists who are (relatively speaking) psychologically healthy, but that doesn't mean they can work with ALL clients on ALL issues. Everyone has things that are a little too close to home. I would expect that to be the case for psychologically healthy individuals and individuals with past and / or present issues with mental health alike. It would be a problem if ones issues were extensive enough such that one couldn't treat any patients for anything... But aside from that there is room for different people to find their niche.

Would I go and see a smoking surgeon for a lung cancer operation? If the surgeon was a good surgeon you bet I would. Would I listen to an obese general practitioner tell me about the health perils of obesity? If the general practitioner was a good general practitioner then you bet I would. I would hope that the general practitioner would be understanding about just how hard it was to lose weight. I don't see that the general pratitioners experience with obesity would be intrinsically harmful or helpful to me. I think that experiences aren't intrinsically harmful or helpful, though they can be used to either. It is up to the person.

I had a friend with severe anorexia and I noticed that his main clinician was rather on the underweight side herself. She had extremely good insight into my friends way of thinking. She helped him feel understood in many respects where other clinicians were unable to similarly help him feel understood. She had a very good eye for the situations he was likely to find problematic and she had a very good eye for things that the general medical staff needed to watch out for - including keeping an eye on his hiding food and / or purging. She was able to use her experience to really help my friend, and for that I'm grateful.

I think that this is an issue that is likely to get people here feeling rather defensive about. Maybe this is partly because people who have had an experience of mental illness likely do have some worried about whether they will be able to be good, effective, helpful clinicians or whether they are going to be just as crappy as some of those they had experienced in the past. A career in clinical psychology / psychiatry is more than a mere job, it is something of a vocation. It becomes a significant part of ones identity as a helper. To suggest that people here, who are trying their best to recover from their issues and be the best clinician they can be, aren't up to the task isn't likely to be received well. I know that you haven't accused anybody of this... That that wasn't your intention. But I do think that it is understandable that people here might feel a little defensive, like you are pushing a hot spot.

How about you? Do you think that your experience with mental illness has the potential to negatively impact on a clinical practice? Is that why you decided that field wasn't for you? Is this discussion partly because you are wondering whether you made the right decision? Whether you could use your experiences to help?

Is it that you would like to truly believe that you could use your experiences to help others, but that you are afraid that you might not be able to?

I think that this issue would be best addressed here rather than on the Student Doctor Network.

Only... If only... There was a forum that combined theoretical discussion with a process of self-reflection and insight into what biases / prejudices / beliefs were driving ones theoretical point of view...

For now... There is something of a split between theoretical discussion (here referred to as 'arguing' or 'debating' in a way that has significant negative connotations) and a process of reflection and insight (sorely lacking from the Student Doctor Network).

Online process group anyone?????