Being in training as a counsellor or therapist can be costly financially and in terms of time and energy.
Do you need a ‘training therapist’ with a humanistic approach who can be;
- flexible on fees?
- flexible on session times including evening or weekend?
- familiar with completing a ‘training log‘ for your college or training organisation?
- ready to balance your ‘need for therapy hours’ with your need to meet any underlying personal material in an authentic way?
Training as a stressor
When we reach the level in therapy training where we’re becoming ready to meet our first clients, training courses often require trainees to have their own experience of being a client for a certain number of hours.
For some trainees this won’t be their first experience as a client. For others it might be.
Alongside our everyday external stressors such as work and family, counsellor/therapy training can bring additional sources of stress such as;
- the deadlines, assessment criteria, financial and time pressures that come with any vocational or academic training
- being in ‘process group’ or ‘triad’ settings where new awarenesses may arise about ‘who we are’ & ‘how we are’
- early client work may bring up our own personal material which isn’t being taken to clinical supervision
- when our emerging and authentic self outpictures into relationships with family, friends or colleagues there may be new relational challenges to everyday life. We can be ‘accused’ of ‘being a counsellor’!
Courage and Richness
I guess you set out down this path to be of service to others. Along the way it’s inevitable that you’ll meet parts of yourself that feel challenged by the process of training, and then by the clientwork itself.
Your training journey is courageous. And, the rewards in terms of your own personal awareness and inner growth can be rich.
So this is my frame of reference when I meet counsellors/therapists in training;
- A respect for that courageous part of you that has brought you to this point
- A knowing that this journey may well challenge you in so many ways; relationally, energetically, financially…
- An awareness that training courses expect a certain number of ‘therapy hours’ within a set timescale
- A readiness to meet and uphold that part of you which has chosen to be of service to others
Authenticity
Your personal therapy during training needs to strike an authentic balance between meeting the needs of your course and your more personal needs.
I offer an introductory session without fee as a way to begin. My idea is that we use part of this session to talk genuinely about;
- what your course expects of your ‘personal therapy’ time
- what you sense might be needed in these sessions
- your ‘vision’ for your practice; who will you serve and how?
- what your schedule is like; I can be flexible with session days and times (see my current availability below) and we can vary our appointments to suit both our needs
- what your financial situation has to say about fees
Making a start…
Perhaps you’re ready to explore personal therapy as part of your humanistic counselling/therapy training and you can align with how I’ve described my approach here.
I would say let’s talk about how we might work together; use the contact form below to send me an email.