| Description |
This qualitative study explored the personal experience of optimal performance of psychotherapy through personal well-being practices as described by 10 therapists. Psychotherapy is defined herein as a healing art in which the therapist is the instrument of healing. Based on the high level of interpersonal functioning required for therapists to perform their work, self-care is presented as an ethical imperative. Through stratified sampling, 10 participants, cisgender male and female psychotherapists - six psychologists, two social workers, and two mental health counselors - ranging in age from 30-64, with varied religious or spiritual affiliations, sexual orientations, and racial backgrounds, each of whom described themselves as committed to personal self-care practice, were recruited and interviewed and asked to describe their experiences of providing good therapy and the components of caring for themselves that were seen as necessary to provide good therapy. The data spoke less of distinct activities and more of a continual process of personal wellness. Phenomenological explicitation through an hermeneutic design as a "dance of interpretation" was used to explore and describe the continual process of self- and other-attunement, including acceptance, compassion, and self-regulation. The results are presented as a dynamic process consisting of five main elements: context, attunement, embodiment, responsiveness, and vulnerability. An exciting discovery is the synergistic flow experienced by participants while providing quality therapy. This may suggest that optimal performance in psychotherapy may be regenerative for therapists. The findings from this study contribute new data to the literature on the role of self-care in the provision of good psychotherapy. |
