In this assessment I will give an overview of and summarise a journal article by Jennings and Skovholt (1999) with the title; ‘The cognitive, emotional and relational characteristics of master therapists’. The aim of the research in this article was to identify specific attributes master therapists had in common. Although no set list of characteristics was identifiable the study did provide an outline of a ‘fully functioning person’. As described by Carl Rogers, such a person is one who is open to experience, able to live existentially, trusting his/her own self, expresses feelings freely, acts independently, is creative and lives a richer life (Pescitelli, 1996). A fully functioning therapist is not someone who has arrived; it is someone who strives to keep growing as a person emotionally, professionally and interpersonally. I will reflect on the points that I found interesting and what I have learned.
Also I will reflect on the skills that I do possess and the ones I need to work on to further develop in becoming a great therapist.Overview of the article Jennings and Skovholt (1999) have done a study in order to try and define what characteristics make for a great therapist. Their study entailed interviews with ten therapists who were regarded by their colleagues and through client referrals as masters in their field. Through these interviews they were able to identify characteristics that were significantly well developed within these therapists personally and professionally.Master therapists (MTs) are people who are more self-controlled, more compassionate towards others and had a positive outlook on life, people and therapy.
They are able to assess transference and countertransference reactions well and use it constructively in therapy. Centrally, they are people who are capable of making others feel cared for and safe. They are aware of and unafraid of their own emotions and able to fearlessly assist clients in facing their pain without getting overwhelmed by it.Those that are considered MTs seem to have an equal balance of cognitive ability, emotional maturity and excellent interpersonal skills. Below I will give a summary of the key attributes that were identified in the study.
Cognitive domain of master therapists Category 1: Master therapists are voracious learners MTs are dedicated to personal and professional growth. They seem to have an insatiable hunger for knowledge and are eager to learn new theories and try out different techniques. MTs are not afraid of being wrong and use failures as building blocks for success. They find pleasure in exploring the complexities of the human psyche.
Category 2: Accumulated experiences have become a major resource for MT Experience alone will not suffice in making you a great therapist. A MT uses experience as a tool for growth through regular self-reflection, having a mentor and by not being afraid of being wrong. A therapist that is able to learn from his/her mistakes will grow personally and professionally and be much wiser and better able to assist others in dealing with their own problem situations.Category 3: MTs value cognitive complexity and the ambiguity of the human condition MTs are excited by the challenge of understanding the multi-layered and ambiguous human condition, knowing there is always so much more to learn and one can and will never have all the answers or fully understand everything there is to know. They are able to appreciate the beauty and the complexity of the human form.Emotional Domain Category 4: MTs appear to have emotional receptivity The ability to self-reflect, to look inside oneself and to get to know one’s own emotional responses is very important.
It is good for a therapist to go for counselling themselves, speak to a mentor and have peer consultations in order to get a different perspective of themselves and how they are perceived by others. Negative feedback should be treated positively and seen as an opportunity to grow personally and professionally.Category 5: MTs seem to be mentally healthy and mature individuals Master therapists practice what they preach and lead a healthy lifestyle, making sure they get enough rest and physical exercise. They are real with themselves, their clients and people in general.
They understand their role as helper, see themselves as fallible human beings and are always open to learn from their mistakes. They attend to their own emotional well-being, seem to have developed a healthy balance of their own importance in the world and in the counselling relationship and possess a real sense of humility. Those that become great counsellors understand that maintaining their own emotional welfare is a continuing process and have found plentiful ways to do so.Category 6: MTs identifies how their emotional health affects the quality of their work MTs needs to always note the effects of transference and counter transference. They need to reflect on their own emotions continuously and deal with their anxieties as to not have it negatively affect therapy. A good therapist is able to recognise how counter transference can be used effectively in order to assist with the therapeutic process.
Relational Domain Category 7: MTs have strong relational skills Many therapists become emotional caretakers or conflict managers at a very young age in their families of origin. It seems that having experienced emotional pain yourself makes you more receptive and respectful towards other’s pain. Although emotional pain is not a prerequisite to becoming a good therapist, a person who was able to work through their own pain can have an advantage of being able to identify to a certain degree with a client’s emotional difficulties.Good therapists are able to create a warm environment for clients in which they can feel safe to expose embarrassing and painful emotions.Category 8: MTs are able to build strong working alliances A good therapist recognises that change is very possible and uses the therapeutic alliance to work together with the client as a team.
The therapist can and should not choose for the client. The client needs to learn how to make it in life himself. The therapist just needs to be there beside the client to help him see his choices and consequences and assist the client in choosing.Category 9: MTs are experts at using their relational skills A good therapist can build a relationship of warmth and caring and is able to judge accurately just how much to challenge a client in order to achieve positive results. They can strike a balance between being empathetic towards pain and not being over impressed by it.
Opinions that I found interesting For me it is very enlightening to realise that your skills as a counsellor cannot be cultivated simply by learning theories and practices. It is just as important to be caring, compassionate and emotionally secure. It is so much easier to learn facts than to face your own true self. It is easy to follow a guideline, but in practise no two people are alike and as a counsellor you will never have all the facts. The making for a great counsellor involves being able to fill the cracks of a story and have great results with the information available.
Here I see the advantage of experience. I believe through practice it will surely become easier to identify problem situations and easier to know how people mask what they mean. As a novice I worry about taking things at face value and not identifying the real issues and in, being blinded with my own opinion, I miss something important and work on less relevant issues. I guess that is why the therapeutic alliance is so very central in therapy.
We become more honest when we feel safe and loved. Being able to do that, making people feel safe and loved, and then knowing when and how much to challenge must be the real challenge in therapy and doing all that honestly from your heart.Something that I have realised in reading this article is that you will never truly know how effective you are as a counsellor. I can go to a counsellor that has worked for many and not be able to ‘connect’ with him/her. The same counts for when I am counselling, some people will feel comfortable with me and others might not.
As a counsellor you can just do your utmost best and trust your abilities and not take failure or correction personally, but use it as a guideline in order to better yourself as a person and a therapist.What I have learned that was new I used to think that a therapist should know all the answers. You can go to this person and he or she will listen to your problems and they will magically provide a way to think that will take all the pain away. Reading this article, I have realised that not even the best of the best in therapy can say they know how to do it all and no therapist can take away any of your problems or pain. A therapist’s job is to help a client manage their pain by finding a different perspective.Gibson, Sandenberg & Swartz (2002) explains the concept of containment very effectively as a way of helping.
He uses the example of emotions as a liquid in a jug and when a person has emotional pain or trauma the jug overflows. When such a person can share this pain with another by the simple act of speaking about it and feeling heard and understood, it is as if some of that liquid gets poured over to the other’s jug and when it gets returned to the owner of the first jug, the pain somehow seems more manageable. The greatest power in counselling must surely be the ability to help people manage their pain; I am just amazed that the simple act of really listening is so very powerful.Something else that struck me in the article is the fact that a therapist is really just there to listen and assist, not to guide or direct. As a counsellor you need to clarify options and consequences, but you are not making the choices. Even when you do not agree with a client’s choice, you cannot withdraw and retreat, you need to still be there for the client.
It is after all, the client’s own life and you cannot live it for them. They need to learn how to do it for themselves. The characteristics I do possess and the ones I need to work onI have had my fair share of painful experiences in my past, slightly more than most, and I have found that I easily overemphasize. I easily get sucked in to see only one side of a story and forget to first stand back and get perspective.
Due to the diversity of the emotional and personal issues I have had to deal with in my own life, I find it easy not to judge and I believe I make people feel safe and cared for.An attribute I need to focus on is the wisdom to know how to assist a client in dealing with their problem situations and unused potential. People speak to me easily and applaud me for great direction and words of wisdom, but in counselling it is different. I feel powerless to make the impact I would like to and I feel my advice lacks scientific plausibility.
The information a client provides is such a small fraction of the truth. Surely with experience the ability to know what is being said and what is being omitted becomes easier. I want to focus my attention on learning what to do with a problem once it has been identified. And the ability to look past all that is happening and having insight of the actual issues at hand.Conclusion Becoming a great therapist is an on-going process that is only achievable by those that actively pursue it.
Those that hunger for knowledge and growth, those who are brave enough to face their own emotional troubles in order to assist others in dealing with theirs and those who are genuinely intrigued by the complexities and ambiguity of the human form. They have genuine love and interest in people and the sincere desire to make positive change possible.
