These first three weeks have let me in on a funny uniqueness about the education of Therapists, Psychologists, Counselors. In other graduate programs you wouldn't be asked to delve deeply into your feelings and past experiences to work them out as a class assignment. I am often assigned books and excerpts to read that are purposefully challenging and then asked to report my reactions and misgivings.
I can't imagine this occurring in many other graduate programs. I'm not saying that other graduate programs aren't emotionally challenging or gripping. But I don't think it's often the intention of the program to put you through some sort of group therapy. Imagining a Fluid Mechanics professor asking his students to read about a new technology and report their feelings and emotional limitations seems pretty silly. But that is essentially the best analogy I can make.
So as I read from my psychotherapy book and I am asked to control my defense mechanisms, separate my past from my reactions, and confront resistance with controlled honesty; I can't help but think how personality altering this education could be. Although I don't think people who didn't fit these norms would be inclined to seek this degree.
I have also begun to formulate something I would like to call the psychologist personality. It is not a rigid personality but one that does have some strong similarities. Tending to be slightly neurotic over achievers trapped in the bodies of people loving big personalities we are constantly slug back and forth between our love and compassion for others and the need to preserve our own well being. (Mind you this is of course entirely my opinion)
I was interested to read though in my psychotherapy book that it has been found that often therapists have been "Parentized". To be "parentized" means that at an early age you took on roles of being a parent. This isn't indicative of a problem household though, it could be indicative of culture, birth order, socioeconomic status, or personality. This theory though is definitely relative to myself and I will be interested to see through my "group therapy" education with my cohort what develops.
Hayden - thank you for sharing! As I read this, I think back to you sitting on my lap saying "Go Niners!" and "Cute Boy"...wow you've come a long way. Blessings as you continue this road.
ReplyDelete~ Juli (Swinnerton) Lorton
I love hearing your thoughts on your learning experience.
ReplyDeleteEncouraging personal growth and introspection is a critical part to equiping a good therapist. Programs that do not do this send out therapist that are ill equipped and don't even know it.
It does create personality change and part of the process of grad school is deciding what parts of your personality you want to have morph and what parts you keep. It can get crazy in the process, but once you are out of that environment and practicing it all balances out into a healthier place.
I hope for your sake that they require individual therapy as a requirement to graduation! What better way to learn than to experience it from the recieving end and what better way to process all the "issues" that get brought to the surface during grad school!!! If they don't require it - I would suggest that you require it of yourself. An investment that pays off the rest of your life in ways that you can't even immagine now.
Remember to keep asking God what he wants to "sift" out and what he wants you to keep.