Providing therapy can be therapeutic for a therapist.
In this paper, the case is made that providing therapy to a client can be therapeutic for the therapist. Therapist change is not intentionally sought nor professionally delivered, but is from those client interactions experienced as healing. The possible mechanisms of change for the therapist include exposure of much about him- or herself being "on the line" in therapy, and the therapeutic relationship as a collaborative, two-way system. In the collaborative system, much might affect a therapist, including how the client understands and reacts to the therapist's disposition, motivation, self-disclosure, and skill and what the client reveals about his or her life that may lead the therapist to a new sense of her or his own life.
Rosenblatt
Paul C
PC
Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, 290 McNeal Hall, 1985 Buford Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA. prosenbl@umn.edu
D003379:Countertransference; D006801:Humans; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D013811:Psychotherapeutic Processes; D011613:Psychotherapy