Quote:
Originally Posted by My kids are cool
Asia, I admire so much your level of self-awareness and ability to put the interests of your future clients first. I think that, for me, what I was talking about in terms of 'instability' was much more about active illness and the personality disorders, rather than just sort of low grade, background issues that would not affect clients. I have one acquaintance who has a history of CSA, and while I really feel for her, she will be so dangerous to clients if she ever starts practicing. She has borderline personality disorder, and she thinks she is FINE and totally stable and has conquered her illness (or presents herself as if she thinks this). From the outside looking in, though, she clearly still has huge issues and cannot handle disagreement, disappointment, or too many fluctuations in her life or the moods of those around her. She still has giant issues around abandonment and feeling left out. I cannot see her ever handling the kind of push/pull thing that happens in therapy, or reacting well if a client disagrees with or challenges her.
Perhaps part of this issue is that some people do not have the self awareness or the insight that Asia has. They think their problems are solved or not so bad that the problems will affect clients. I see several people also who clearly look unstable to me, and who TO ME seem like they would be horrible therapists due to their issues, but who seem to think they are fine and stable and able to be therapists.
I know there were times when I was not functioning as well as I could because of my own issues with depression. I tried really hard to keep it from affecting my clients, but I am not certain I was always successful. Luckily in my profession, it's generally not the case that my mistakes would affect someone's mental healthy status.
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I am very self-aware and insightful but i also suffer many of the traits of borderline personality, i've never had a psych evaluation so not sure if i def have it or just have the traits of it, it has been alluded to by therapists. So abandonment issues are huge for me (how would i handle a client leaving abruptly?) I don't deal well with interpersonal relationships (what if one client reminded me of my mother? Or if a client reminded me so much of me that it irritated me?) and the push pull thing you speak of is very prevalent in my relationships.
The scary thing is, i hide it all really well which is a byproduct of my upbringing, and am very self-aware that these feelings/behaviours aren't good or healthy so i try really hard not to indulge in them but i could easily pass as stable and a school would have no worries about me becoming a therapist and it wouldn't be until i was in the job that perhaps some of these traits i have could interfere with the therapeutic relationship. I am not willing to take that risk. I've had crap therapists and i know the damage it does.
Not all borderlines are outwardly emotionally unstable and unaware. The classically acting out borderline would easily be picked out as unsuitable for therapy training but there are "quiet borderlines" which act inwards rather than outwards and they are much harder to spot and might slip thru the net. I think if anything i am one of those. Luckily with my awareness and perfectionist streak
i need to know that i am not going to harm anyone and that i am the best therapist i can possibly be and to do that i need to solve my own problems first.
) - that's why I'd go only to a licenced psychotherapist (here it means 5 yr of additional training- including group and individual therapy plus supervision)- still the mental health is not guaranteed but at least it's stg... God knows I don't need to be more messed up than I already am.
This is an old thread. You probably should not post your reply to it, as the original poster is unlikely to see it.
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