What makes therapists want to be therapists

I do believe people want to be in the so called "helping" professions. I do believe it is because those people think they want to "help" other people. I also believe that desire to "help" is not born of altruism, compassion, an idea of what they picture "helping" another is, and/or decency at its core. A person certainly can name them among their reasons, but I don't think those are the most or among the most true motivators that cause a person to do so.
I enjoy my job of teaching at a university and being a lawyer. I am not displeased when I can convey information to students in such a way they understand something useful for them on their path to becoming lawyers. I am not displeased when my clients are happy with the outcome of a case.

When I was in training for suicide prevention, one of the first things we addressed was this notion of "helping" or even further of "saving." We were forced to interrogate that rigorously. And eventually to give it up.

I know plenty of people who live compassionately and are dedicated to it. It motivates a lot of what they do. It isn't a personal quality. It is a shared ideal of living well as a human being. I don't see how that could be turned into something that is a negative or selfish. There are people who work long and hard to rid themselves of egoic tendencies. And believe or not, people are successful in doing just that. What they do then when they commit to others in a community or society cannot be taken as bad faith. That's too easy.

I have nothing against those who think they live compassionately, I will leave them alone as long as they can do the same for me. As long as they understand their commitment to others is theirs and no one else's it is okay. I just want them to stay away from me with their commitment. I try to live in a reasonably compassionate way in so far as I grasp the notion, but I don't try to fob it off on the unsuspecting community. of others.

I can't imagine you having an audience with the Dalai Lama. Could you really be so dismissive a deep rich tradition such as Buddhism, that puts impersonal values above all others and dissolves the separation between individuals as a delusion, finding compassion one of the more intrinsic parts of human nature. Stanford Medical School has a whole program as part of its psychology program to train people in compassion. There are actually scientific studies that show physiological changes that happen when people become more attuned and compassionate. Some say we are hard-wired to be "relational" so it's becoming more than a personal preference/delusion and more of a scientific truth about how we are as human beings.

I can't imagine why I would want an audience with the Dalai Lama. I have nothing against buddhism or any other religion if someone finds it useful. Have at it. I am not stopping or attempting to stop anyone from going with it if they want. But like I feel about other religions, don't do it at or for me.

I was teasing you in play. And I wasn't bringing up Buddhism as a religion but as view on self, delusion, and compassion that has had an impact on Western science. I don't think that we are like savages grabbing at what we selfishly want and uncaring about where we stand with others and I was just bringing up a whole school or so of people that share this view. You see things differently but seem unwilling to acknowledge that other views might have some bearing and reality to them. So I was teasingly getting at that. But if you believe what you want to without considering other points of view, not much I can say or do.

You have taken me too extremely. I did not say I do not consider other points of view. I am certainly free to consider and still disagree. The fact that I still disagree does not mean I have not considered it. I said I do not want do gooders and "helpers" thinking they are doing it for me. I did not say anything about people becoming therapists because of conscious selfish grabbing either. I also constantly added it the idea that one believes one wants to help/be compassionate could be a part of it - just not the whole of it. I also said others can do it differently from me and it is fine by me - as long as those others do not try and fob their way off on me. All I want is to be free of the helping do gooders. I do believe all humans are still savages at the root of it. We try, I believe, to deny it or separate or distinguish from it, but animals we are in the end. We rarely beat each other to death with clubs as groups any more in Western Culture, but is it really more civilized to drop bombs, shoot guns, etc? And so forth. I have not found the therapist to be attuned with me. If others do and it is useful to them - again it is fine with me. If therapist/want -to- be believes they are in it because of their extreme compassion, humanity, decency - then fine with me. Whether I believe them or not is of little consequence to them. I just don't want that person as the therapist I see.

I am slightly concerned about how the description you give seems to malign savages. In some ways, with a good clear cut savage, one knows where one stands. With the amorphous helping do gooder, one would do well to remain wary in that their motives, actions and desired results are not so clear, in my opinion.

It seems to me that even in Buddhism the path is ultimately for oneself. The correct path for oneself is said to involve helping others, but is chosen as being best for oneself.

What is wrong with admitting that a T derives satisfaction for him/herself through helping others?

My t has said it energises her, she has seen bad people but more good than bad.

Agreed. Self-interest as a motivator can be good or bad depending upon the person. I, too, prefer to keep myself safe from many who would claim to be "helpers," as their motivations scream that they are fulfilling their needs at my expense. On the other hand, someone who's motivation is a healthy self-interest, may allow me the space and respect to be in charge of my own process. There is great kindness and compassion in that.

It's all about balance in motivations, and both compassion and self-interest can be either positive or negative. As much as I admire the Dalai Lama, I have also known a fair share of Buddhists who display compassion on their sleeves, yet lack it in their hearts, as is true of the followers of any religion.

Sorry to turn this in a direction where there is an argument. I just was watching a set of videos about the Dalai Lama at Stanford and a training program they have there on compassion so it was on my mind. I just mentioned Buddhism partly from that, but also because it is the easiest to name of several schools that do not see the self as an individual agent independent from others so the discussion of self-centered motives or bad faith has to be altered because it doesn't apply so neatly if you take that point of view. I'm suspicious too, but I can't attribute bad faith to people since I don't know unless I have something to go on so I can't say all people are acting in bad faith. That doesn't seem tenable.

I would not call it bad faith to admit that a T is acting in their own best interest by being a T. It becomes bad faith, in my view, when they stop doing the job properly, when they stop treating their clients in a professional manner.

I'm not saying people don't have some interest in what concerns them, but rather wondering it if is really fair or possible to make a claim about a whole group of people that they can't be altruistic or if they claim that it is bad faith. That just seems wrong.

If we look at another group of people, the families of Sandy Hook, who have used their own tragedy to help others, what would be like to tell them they are in bad faith? It wouldn't just be any old statement, but rather quite insulting and even harmful. So maintaining that level of suspicion has consequences. I'm just trying to point to that and say I can't see how it is justifiable across the board.

I'm not characterizing anyone in all or nothing terms here. My point is simply that intention can change a positive attribute to a negative, and the reverse. Compassion can be positive or negative depending upon the intention of the person displaying compassion.

To use your example of the Sandy Hook families, I have no way of knowing what their intentions are. I can evaluate their actions, and those actions may have the result of helping others. Whether those actions are inspired by altruism or a self need to come to terms with their losses doesn't matter to me. Why would someone accuse them of bad faith or anything else? It's irrelevant. This isn't about "suspicion" it's about the recognition that peoples' motives are as individual as anything else which means they may be positive or negative, consciously or otherwise, independent of their actions.

I am not disagreeing. Like I said, I can't really say anything unless I have something to go on. I was just highlighting the way that making claims can bounce back and potentially do damage. So saying that all people who claim to be helpers are really fooling themselves is not just a neutral statement and I question how it could be made.

Ohhhh, sorry I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at the idea that Ts make a decent income. When I was in training our profs used to tell us if we wanted to make a lot of money we needed to go next door to the business college and get an MBA. I work for a non-profit agency. People with a high school diploma working in a call center make more money than I do.

I don't usually disclose in the forums that I'm a therapist, but am going to stick my two cents in.

My reasons for becoming a T, in no particular order...

A couple of people mentioned having a curiosity about what makes people tick. That was part of it for me. Being a T is kind of like being a detective.

Part of it was a need for a career change. I used to have a very physical outdoor job. I had to find something less physical for health reasons.
When I went for career counseling all the careers that were a good match entailed helping people. So, contrary to what some others have said, I was motivated - IN PART - by wanting to offer help to people. In reading other posts in this thread there seems to be confusion about wanting to offer help and forcing it on people. I view my role in working with clients to walk with them on their journey, maybe shining a light on the path for them to help them see where they are going. People in the profession who think they know what the client "should" be doing scare the poo out of me.

Yes, I became interested in becoming a therapist while I was in counseling myself, but I was already using the basic skills in my previous profession. I needed training to polish those skills.

I kept saying indoors was a part of it.