If you are choosing to enter the mental health field, personal therapy is critical. You have blind spots to identify, attachment styles to understand, self-care routines to establish, “savior” parts to keep in check, and perhaps mental health concerns of your own to manage.

 

If you’re still in school, I know the grueling schedule of balancing internships, classes, and a job are causing enormous stress. The work you’re doing in your graduate programs will also stir up old traumas, unresolved griefs, insecurities, and issues with your family-of-origin. Having a place to sort through all of this is important to your professional development.

Early on in your career, you’re starting to learn that your ability to hold space for clients as they make their own courageous journeys toward wellness will depend in part on the depth of your own experience on that same journey. “You can only take a client as far as you’ve gone yourself.” I heard that so many times that it became trite, but there is some truth to it. Your clients will be able to feel in their bodies if you are asking them to do work you’re avoiding yourself; inauthenticity always causes a disconnect that can derail the therapeutic process. Personal therapy will help you, but it’s also a gift to your clients.

 

You’re forming your identity as a healer, an identity that you’ll carry with you for decades to come. The way you engage with therapy now will have a profound effect on the way you work with clients throughout your career. Take full advantage of this meaningful time in your life.

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If you are a new mental health professional and interested in working with me, please contact me to schedule a free consultation.