Experienced psychoanalytically oriented therapists' narrative accounts of their personal therapy: Impacts on professional and personal development

The impacts of personal therapy on the professional and personal developmen t of experienced psychotherapists were studied through in-depth interviews with five experienced psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists (two men and three women). An adaptation of the method of consensual qualitative co ding was used to study the narrative accounts of previous and current thera py experiences leading to the identification six domains: (a) importance of personal therapy for therapists; (b) impacts on the professional self: ide ntity; (c) impacts on one's being in the session: process; (d) experiences in previous and current therapy; (e) self in relation to the personal thera pists; and (f) mutual and unique influences of didactic learning, supervisi on, and personal therapy. Personal therapy is perceived not only as an esse ntial part of the training phase, but as playing an important role in the t herapist's ongoing process of individuation and in the development of the a bility to use the self, to achieve moment-to-moment authentic relatedness w ith one's clients.