1. What do you like more of from Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD)?
I have only been subscribed to FPD for about a year... maybe even less. First off, Thank you. I have been enjoying every aspect of FDP. Audio, written, video, blogs. There is no one format I prefer. They all work for me. I wish I would have found this/your work many many years ago. How do we get this information out to the masses?! :)
2. Do you feel professionally orphaned? Do you have thoughts about how we can address this topic on “caring for those who care?”
Yes, I feel professionally orphaned. I have been fully licensed as psychotherapist for 10+ years and even in graduate school I felt like I had no direction, no understanding of what therapy in the room looked like, no guidance, supervision was dismal and was spent mostly talking about themselves, no real help on finding internships/placements. I have spent most of the last 10 + years trying to figure it out, going to every training possible and still feeling like I have no community and no direction. Each training saying they are the "holy grail" to healing and still not seeing it work for every client. Oh the shame that occurs as a therapist/human feeling like I have done something wrong or I just didn't quite get it right - "You should have been paying more attention." (Direct quote from a consultant/supervisor helping me with a modality I was trained in when it didn't work for a client.) Many times I have felt like I needed to leave the profession. I was so overly worked to death in my last job, high burnout, and little to give to friends and family when I got home, that the only way I saw surviving and staying in this profession was to build a private practice. Now I work all alone but at least I am not burntout, finding balance, and have my life/soul/love/ and joy back. It's sad to say that the only way I survived was to be on my own. I wish it was different in our field. I am not sure how to change this but that's how I have managed. Daryl, I have found your work along with Scott Miller to be refreshing and I have a new found hope that things can be different and that maybe agencies can begin to incorporate professional development and FIT. I think that would be a good step.
3. How are you applying DP principles? Do you know what to work on to improve your effectiveness as a therapist? I am working on the rational of FIT (just began incorporating this in July) and rational for interventions and other aspects of the practice. I was never taught how to provide a rational, bring a client into the process, and collaborate with them in a way that provides good outcomes for them. It feels like a big learning curve but so valuable. I still don't know my exact baseline since I am gathering FIT data but started with something small to see if it does improve effectiveness as a therapist.
Kristi, thank you. You've hit on so many important notes. One of them that is most significant to me: The after-effect of shame from workshops ("must be something I'm not doing right"). It's unfortunately a more common theme than many of us are afraid to admit.
I have been following your blog and newsletter for around 1 year and have found it very helpful for my development as a new therapist. Although this is not direct feedback to your question, I really appreciate your focus on client outcomes and therapist development. I think is missing in my training as well as supervision and motivates me to incorporate a deliberate practice system. I have started to incorporate a learning system, and objectives but would like to better integrate this in my workplace and share more about FIT with my supervisor as I do feel "professionally orphaned" at times.
One of the biggest troubles in many agency settings is that it's narrow focus on a "performing system"impedes any hope of cultivating an ongoing "learning system"
In the Deep Learner course, we take a deep dive into this.
Will, if it's ok with you, pls keep us posted on your development and discoveries along the way!
I definitely relate to the notion of professional orphan. I was exicted when you mentioned you were gonna start a platform for discussion with your readers because the first thing I wanted to ask was; How do you all manage? Where I am living it is hard to feel any real hope about finding decent working conditions. Most agencies in any area that do psychotherapy has too long waiting lines, too few hours for therapy and only the vaguest concepts of professional development. Being disheartened never helps of course but I would love to hear about HOW to build working workplaces. Sharing the collective experience of people in the community and figuring out what the common factors of good workenviroments for therapists are would be super interesting.
Hi Osame, good to hear from you.. You've raised a really important question. It's a question about the culture that each of us is embedded in.
After all, the word "culture" means "to care" . It's bizarre that many of us in a caring professional are not in a soul-caring environment.
This was one of the reasons I left Singapore and the workplace I was in. I was in an environment that was missing the plot, and the side-effect of that was that my family was getting the crumbs of me when I got home.
In gist, a culture is vibrant when what the collective wants is aligned with what the individual wants.
---
Some weeks ago, I heard a therapist say that she felt like a factory worker--asked to churn the numbers by her organisation while the leaders kept their eyes on vanity metrics.
---
I would really love to hear from others in the community re: what Osame raised:
1. What do you like more of from Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD)?
I have only been subscribed to FPD for about a year... maybe even less. First off, Thank you. I have been enjoying every aspect of FDP. Audio, written, video, blogs. There is no one format I prefer. They all work for me. I wish I would have found this/your work many many years ago. How do we get this information out to the masses?! :)
2. Do you feel professionally orphaned? Do you have thoughts about how we can address this topic on “caring for those who care?”
Yes, I feel professionally orphaned. I have been fully licensed as psychotherapist for 10+ years and even in graduate school I felt like I had no direction, no understanding of what therapy in the room looked like, no guidance, supervision was dismal and was spent mostly talking about themselves, no real help on finding internships/placements. I have spent most of the last 10 + years trying to figure it out, going to every training possible and still feeling like I have no community and no direction. Each training saying they are the "holy grail" to healing and still not seeing it work for every client. Oh the shame that occurs as a therapist/human feeling like I have done something wrong or I just didn't quite get it right - "You should have been paying more attention." (Direct quote from a consultant/supervisor helping me with a modality I was trained in when it didn't work for a client.) Many times I have felt like I needed to leave the profession. I was so overly worked to death in my last job, high burnout, and little to give to friends and family when I got home, that the only way I saw surviving and staying in this profession was to build a private practice. Now I work all alone but at least I am not burntout, finding balance, and have my life/soul/love/ and joy back. It's sad to say that the only way I survived was to be on my own. I wish it was different in our field. I am not sure how to change this but that's how I have managed. Daryl, I have found your work along with Scott Miller to be refreshing and I have a new found hope that things can be different and that maybe agencies can begin to incorporate professional development and FIT. I think that would be a good step.
3. How are you applying DP principles? Do you know what to work on to improve your effectiveness as a therapist? I am working on the rational of FIT (just began incorporating this in July) and rational for interventions and other aspects of the practice. I was never taught how to provide a rational, bring a client into the process, and collaborate with them in a way that provides good outcomes for them. It feels like a big learning curve but so valuable. I still don't know my exact baseline since I am gathering FIT data but started with something small to see if it does improve effectiveness as a therapist.
Kristi, thank you. You've hit on so many important notes. One of them that is most significant to me: The after-effect of shame from workshops ("must be something I'm not doing right"). It's unfortunately a more common theme than many of us are afraid to admit.
I have been following your blog and newsletter for around 1 year and have found it very helpful for my development as a new therapist. Although this is not direct feedback to your question, I really appreciate your focus on client outcomes and therapist development. I think is missing in my training as well as supervision and motivates me to incorporate a deliberate practice system. I have started to incorporate a learning system, and objectives but would like to better integrate this in my workplace and share more about FIT with my supervisor as I do feel "professionally orphaned" at times.
Hi Will, this is so lovely to hear!
One of the biggest troubles in many agency settings is that it's narrow focus on a "performing system"impedes any hope of cultivating an ongoing "learning system"
In the Deep Learner course, we take a deep dive into this.
Will, if it's ok with you, pls keep us posted on your development and discoveries along the way!
I definitely relate to the notion of professional orphan. I was exicted when you mentioned you were gonna start a platform for discussion with your readers because the first thing I wanted to ask was; How do you all manage? Where I am living it is hard to feel any real hope about finding decent working conditions. Most agencies in any area that do psychotherapy has too long waiting lines, too few hours for therapy and only the vaguest concepts of professional development. Being disheartened never helps of course but I would love to hear about HOW to build working workplaces. Sharing the collective experience of people in the community and figuring out what the common factors of good workenviroments for therapists are would be super interesting.
Best wishes
Hi Osame, good to hear from you.. You've raised a really important question. It's a question about the culture that each of us is embedded in.
After all, the word "culture" means "to care" . It's bizarre that many of us in a caring professional are not in a soul-caring environment.
This was one of the reasons I left Singapore and the workplace I was in. I was in an environment that was missing the plot, and the side-effect of that was that my family was getting the crumbs of me when I got home.
---
I've been brewing on this topic since May last year, and working a piece called Culture Quadrant. For a preview of some of my sketches around this topic, see this link https://www.dropbox.com/s/retron0hkh9kwvo/Culture%20Quadrant.jpg?dl=0
In gist, a culture is vibrant when what the collective wants is aligned with what the individual wants.
---
Some weeks ago, I heard a therapist say that she felt like a factory worker--asked to churn the numbers by her organisation while the leaders kept their eyes on vanity metrics.
---
I would really love to hear from others in the community re: what Osame raised:
How do you manage?