Physician Heal Thyself: Should Therapists Engage in Therapy?

When I started to work in psychiatry as a staff nurse on an inpatient unit, it was deemed important to engage in one’s own individual therapy in order to be more effective with patients. This was the sixties, and New York. But it did make sense that you could make a better job of the “therapeutic use of self” if you knew what your own issues were, and therefore many of us did. 

This was before diagnosis codes and CPT codes, and we paid for our sessions ourselves. Perhaps it goes without saying that therapists in those days charged significantly less in proportion to our meager salaries, but the expense was seen as an investment in our professional development and totally worth it.  For example, at the hospital at which I worked, our patient population included women about my mother’s age who were depressed and needy, issues to which I might have responded differently if I didn’t understand my own mother-daughter dynamics. 

For many people, including those educated as therapists, going to psychotherapy may feel like a sign of defect or damage.  But back then, the idea of engaging in therapy if one was going to work in psychiatry was positive; rather than telling ourselves we "needed" therapy, it was framed that we would benefit by it…and so would our patients. 

I still believe this, and to my patients I frame therapy as something they might benefit from or desire to engage in. Or they can continue along in life dissatisfied or in a series of bad relationships. Or, finally, once having started therapy, they can decide that they have done as much as they choose for a particular time, and continue again later. 

Do graduate programs in the various disciplines today that prepare therapists suggest or require therapy for trainees? Does attending therapy feel like a failure or a sign of weakness? 

And what do we tell patients when they ask if we have ever been in therapy? Is this a time for the “tabula rasa” of the therapist or is it a golden opportunity to explore what being in therapy means for the patient? 

Leslie Durr, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC is an advanced practice psychiatric-mental health nurse with a private psychotherapy practice in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the blog post author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Psych Congress Network or other Psych Congress Network authors.