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Why Counsellors Need Mental Health Therapy

Have you ever sat in session, listening to your client explain why they were angsty over some issue, only to find that you experienced a rising panic and sense of helplessness — because you, too, were dealing with the same issue? Have you ever finished a session with a deeply depressed client, only to find that you then felt very down, even though you were ok before the session? Both of these examples constitute sound reasons to engage a consummately helpful yet infrequently discussed aspect of professional self-care: that of therapy for the therapist. Carl Jung suggested that “a good half of every treatment that probes at all deeply consists in the doctor’s examining himself, for only what he can put right in himself can he hope to put right in the patient” (Plata,... »