Journal of Marital and Family Therapy doi: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2009.00126.x October 2009, Vol. 35, No. 4, 370–380 REFLECTIONS OF TWO TRAINEES: PERSON-OF-THE-THERAPIST TRAINING FOR MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS Lauren Lutz Messiah College Sarah Spell Irizarry NorthEast Treatment Center In this article we share our personal and professional experiences, struggles, and growth, as former trainees of the Person-of-the-Therapist Training pilot study, conducted during our master’s coursework in the Couple and Family Therapy Department at Drexel University. We include our perceptions of the training process in vivo, the challenges and benefits of doing this work in an academic setting, case examples to convey our journey of personal discovery, and the use of what we learned about ourselves in our development as therapists. This development includes a deepening of awareness of self in our relationship and work with our clients, a greater ability to work with both our personal assets and vulnerabilities, as well as the acquisition of skills to actively and purposefully use our entire person diagnostically and therapeutically in our work with clients. Person-of-the-Therapist Training (POTT) was introduced to Drexel’s MFT program in 2003 via one of its professors, Harry Aponte—who, before this study, specialized in working with seasoned clinicians to integrate the POTT principles into their work during clinical supervision. The pilot study discussed in this article was a new attempt at the systematic training on the use of self in an academic setting with individuals at the beginning of their professional training in MFT. The study targeted first-year students. It was clear that this study was for research purposes to determine whether this model of training on the person of the therapist could be integrated into the existing MFT program at Drexel. Therefore, participating students were first asked to sign an appropriate release for the sharing of their information as they documented their experience—which has allowed the detailed, personal examples throughout this article. During an orientation to the program it was also explained that this training was voluntary, not graded, and limited in space; only six places were available—meaning only half of our master’s class could participate. Names were put into a hat and drawn at random, the first six to be included in the training and the remaining listed as alternates in the order in which they were drawn. For the six participating in the study, a 3-hr block of time per week was dedicated to the training. The first two POTT sessions were focused on reading basics about this type of work: articles by Harry Aponte on the subject and readings from the Use of Self (2000) by Baldwin. From these readings, we understood that POTT was not a therapy theory per se, but rather a way of conducting oneself as a therapist, aware of personal experiences and feelings, and how they intersect with one’s work. With the apparent inadequacies of first-time family therapy interns with no clinical experience, we fretted over our own ability to help anyone given our Lauren Lutz, MFT, and Sarah Spell Irizarry, LMFT, graduated from the Couple and Family Therapy Department of Drexel University in June 2005. Lauren is presently employed as a therapist with Safe Harbor Counseling and as an adjunct professor at Messiah College; Sarah is employed as Lead Clinician with the NorthEast Treatment Center in their Family Focused Behavioral Health program. Address correspondence to Lauren Lutz, 2227 Old Emmorton Road, Suite 119, Bel Air, Maryland 21015; E-mail: llutz@messiah.edu 370 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY October 2009 lack of skill and the history of our respective personal struggles with our own families. However, with the introduction to POTT, we soon experienced a paradigm shift in seeing our own personal issues as less of an impediment and more of an avenue to foster a more effective use of ourselves with clients. Along with the insight, the technical skills we would gain in training seemed to promise to make us better therapists. The POTT class began in our first year with all our other classes. During the introductory phase, two faculty trainers explained the training process and conveyed expectations: trainees were to journal their experiences of training sessions in a notebook that was collected regularly (these journal entries provided much of the detailed examples in this article); one trainee would present each week along a 6-week rotation. Trainees were to electronically submit their presentations to the two trainers a week in advance, using one of two outlines provided. One outline focused on our personal issues as manifested in our personal or clinical experiences, and the other on our clinical experiences and the role our personal issues played in our clinical work. Both personal and clinical presentation outlines required us to identify our signature theme and how it affected our clinical work. (Refer to the appendix in ‘‘Training the Person of the Therapist in an Academic Setting’’ [Aponte et al., in press] for the presentation outlines.) Personal presentations focused more on our signature theme from a historical perspective and in our current lives. Case presentations looked more precisely at the evidence of our signature themes in our clinical work. We not only examined how our personal issues influenced our work but also how we could actively use them to enhance our clinical effectiveness. SIGNATURE THEMES Signature themes are the personal challenges—psychological, relational, cultural, and spiritual—that have most powerfully shaped the course of our lives. They were not self-evident, but once we began trying to talk about them, they began to emerge—as unique as we are unique individuals. Identifying signature themes in our lives was a difficult undertaking at first, but once uncovered, they were quite obvious as our main modes of operating in life. However, the process of exploring our themes publicly was challenging, and this occurred in a group setting of relative strangers who were also new classmates. In the first few presentations many of us discussed different personal problems that appeared to be patterned in our lives, and called them our signature themes. With the facilitators’ guidance we moved toward refining our ideas of what a signature theme was in general, and what ours were specifically. In the process of doing personal work, most trainees in the group became more candid in the discussion of personal histories, and in the exposure of our less than brilliant clinical moments. As a group, we had variable levels of comfort talking about our signature themes as they manifested themselves, and thread throughout our lives, including in our clinical practice. For us, the authors, presenting repeatedly in the presence of other group members and witnessing their presentations also had an impact on our attitudes toward our own struggles with ourselves and our clinical work. It was quite an eye-opening and validating experience. Again, speaking for ourselves, the authors, our experience, however unique our issues were, we could see through the presentations of our colleagues the common humanity. Reaching out to understand and support each other in the group helped us to be more compassionate toward ourselves about our own life struggles. GROUP DYNAMICS However, difficulties in our group dynamics did arise over the 2 years of training. Three different trainees at three different times resigned from the group for a variety of reasons. Unexpectedly, the experience of losing three group members, and leaving three committed to continuing, pulled the remainder of the group closer together. Sessions became deeper and October 2009 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 371 more intimate, possibly due to the growing trust among the remaining three. Having fewer group members also meant those who were left were to present more frequently, every third week versus every sixth week. Sessions became more intense; signature themes solidified; we flew through the remainder of training with more comfort and confidence than before. For instance, in these later days of training, the authors shared a practicum site, allowing for daily contact and dialogue between us about cases and issues that touched on our signature themes. Because of the trust forged in training, we became a resource for each other, even to the point of soliciting each other as cotherapist for sessions expected to activate signature themes. Along the same lines, one of the authors started meeting the third trainee left in the program to watch each other’s clinical video footage and attempted to extend and further understand the process of POTT. Scenarios like this strengthened the comfort and confidence mentioned earlier as we became familiar with ourselves and each other and regularly identified and articulated our themes to each other, for each other, and with each other. This intensive level of sharing about our signature themes made thinking of our person in the clinical process spontaneous and natural. PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH In the end, signature themes were more sophisticated and honest than in the beginning of the training when we were too naı̈ve or feared exposure. For example, a signature theme of anxiety about performing badly evolved into its consequences in the clinical context—fear of challenging a client, and working for instead of with a client. Some of us who risked exploring our basic themes were left wanting to deal more deeply with personal issues, and decided to seek therapy for ourselves. Personal therapy aided even more in refining our signature themes. Overall, refinement of our view of our themes allowed an assured sense of self, based on a familiarity with how we operated in and out of session. It seemed that there was a sense of peace from this rebuilding that was not present before the journey. We were not only more aware of but also more comfortable with ourselves as therapists, as well as with clients and with the issues they presented that did or did not mimic our own. We could more consciously be in command of our own person in the role of therapist. In the write-up for the last training session that followed, the writer captured this growth. The italicized headings denote the outline provided by the trainers. The write-up is unedited from its original presentation. We did not identify which of the authors were portrayed in our examples to hold on to some semblance of anonymity. This allowed us to be more candid even as we protected our feeling of personal vulnerability. FINAL TRAINING SESSION WRITE-UP Personal Presentation While I wanted to present this week, as if it were any other week, I thought it would be best to have some closure and review as other presenters have. While I don’t mark this as an end of my POTT, I didn’t want to introduce anything new as to work more on summarizing and clarifying what I’ve already done. The following has been gathered and slightly refined from past presentations and then there is a reflection ⁄ questions section I added for this week. Signature Theme(s) • ‘‘Keeping it all together’’ to avoid criticism • Anticipating others’ needs and seeking to meet them sometimes before any request is made for me to do so, or in the absence of an expectation that I will do so which complements the ‘‘keeping it all together’’ and causes me to over-work in personal and professional relationships. This then tends to get burdensome and 372 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY October 2009 then I begin to feel resentful, uncompassionate, and unable to access real emotion—especially empathy (a replay of my relationship with my self-focused mother). • Not being able to ask for help (as I am supposed to have it all together), fearing my needs are not ‘‘important enough’’ to ‘‘bother’’ someone; fear others will think I’m acting like the world revolves around me if I ask for what I need or want. • Basically feeling better and more real dealing with things by myself rather than sharing it with someone else. This is what I’ve done since I was a child. From my own therapy I’ve come to understand that my real self was not accepted by my parents and I got used to showing a false self—for fear of criticism or rejection . . . this made my ‘‘alone time’’ refreshing yet tumultuous. This example of one trainee’s signature themes captures not only personal struggles but also their apparent origin, and how they influence and how she manages her life— all-important criteria for identifying a signature theme. Next, the ‘‘focus’’ section draws her to concentrate on how these signature themes appear in her clinical work, and what she may need to change about how she operates in session. Focus • Slowing down in session (not anticipating next action in order to care-take: both in preventing pain and chaos—my own family recipe for caretaking) and staying in experience with client minute to minute. • Not fearing opening ‘‘a can of worms’’ or ‘‘pulling the rug out’’ from underneath clients who also appear to ‘‘have it all together.’’ • How to work with women who activate my signature themes (in reminding me of my mother) as well as losing interest with their stories if they seem to not want to do anything to make their lives better, if they perpetually take the victim role, and if they use the phrases ‘‘no, you don’t understand’’ or if used to their children, ‘‘because I am your mother and I say so’’ or something along those lines. The trainee highlights the importance of being aware of these issues in order to stay with a client ‘‘minute to minute,’’ and to be able to operate more independently from her personal struggles in session. Instead of feeling constricted and blocked by her personal issues, she is freer to use her self-awareness to better understand her clients, and guide her own responses to them. These items are potential areas for both personal and professional growth. Reflection ⁄ Questions Basically, I feel like I have learned a lot and work totally differently because of it. I just had a great session this past week as I work on terminating with my clients at my practicum site. It was because I was able to comfortably access and use my own life. This has made my work more enjoyable, energizing, and rewarding—as my clients’ lives touch mine, I feel they know intuitively that mine indeed touches theirs. I think that if I didn’t go through with this training I would be burned out and looking for a new career in a few years, not to mention feeling helpless and depressed about what to do with some clients! I guess my last question would just be ‘‘what can I continue to work on given my themes and tendencies when doing therapy?’’ . . . particularly with the clientele I mentioned above. This trainee discovered how her personal efforts to avoid criticism and anticipate others’ needs manifested themselves in her professional work; the tendencies to overwork in sessions and to be afraid to challenge clients became reminders to slow down in session, and remain present with clients. By being aware of and in touch with her self-absorbing anxiety about performance, she could remind herself to make an extra effort to be present, engaged in the moment, with her client. In lieu of anticipating clients’ needs and seeking to meet them all by October 2009 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 373 herself, slowing down allowed for additional time to assess and connect to their experience instead of rushing to rescue them and ‘‘Band-Aid’’ their plight. In closing, the trainee shared how such training affected her impression of therapy, and what it meant to accept herself as a therapist who was human and had struggles of her own. This deepened self-awareness and selfacceptance seemed to tie her more comfortably to the humanity she shared with her clients in their struggles. TRAINING SESSIONS IN VIVO Training sessions where presentations like the one above were shared had the potential to challenge even the trainees who were present but not presenting. As the presenting trainee worked on using her own life experience to identify with and differentiate from her clients, observing trainees could take the opportunity to silently identify the similarities and differences between their own signature themes and those of the person presenting. This provided an opportunity to slow down the process and decipher its elements. For instance, while listening during a peer’s presentation, one trainee was able to further articulate her own signature theme in an entry to her journal: She [the peer] shared how she acts like she has it all together in order to gain approval—her efforts to conceal her weaknesses resonated with my experience, yet I felt a dissonance with her emotions of approval-seeking. Upon reflection on my family of origin experience, and because I did not have to respond to my peer as she presented, I was able to make an important distinction: my motives in ‘‘keeping it all together’’ are more so to avoid criticism. Being afforded such a setting for these insights to occur, this trainee had the chance to silently absorb her own reactions to another’s personal struggles, much like the training was conditioning her to do as a therapist with clients. Furthermore, observing other trainees’ clinical struggles, via videotaped segments of therapy sessions, allowed reflection on the origin of her own reactions without the pressure of responding to a client and creating an intervention, as one would experience in session. In hindsight, these times seemed to highlight the tension between identification and differentiation, and offered a chance to develop listening while empathetically connecting, specifically from a place inside oneself, two trademarks of POTT. Concrete references to these trademarks also came by observing how trainers worked with our fellow trainees. Here, there seemed to be an apparent instructional use of parallel process; we could feel the process unfolding between the trainer and presenting trainee, much like it should occur in the therapy room between therapist and client. This encouraged the development of additional skills to take back to work with clients. Via modeling, we learned that trainers (like therapists) had defined goals, yet remained open to following the momentum of the presenting concerns and motivation of the trainee. It seemed that trainers made disciplined decisions about how to use themselves in relationship with the presenting trainees in order to navigate the session, as shown in the following journal notation from an observing trainee. A peer whom I had personally known to set very high academic standards for herself, was presenting a particular case for which she said she was ‘‘unprepared.’’ The trainer, not knowing my peer as personally, kindly asked questions regarding her work ethic, motivation, and investment in her cases. I knew that my peer was very invested in her work and extremely motivated to become a good therapist. I could tell, from the empathetic questioning, that the trainer intuitively knew this as well. 374 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY October 2009 The trainer’s chain of questioning seemed to contain an agenda. He could have intellectually explained his hypothesis in an instant: it wasn’t that this trainee didn’t care to prepare, but possibly that this ‘‘unpreparedness’’ served as a sort of insurance against failure for this driven individual. However, the manner in which the trainer loosely followed this agenda patiently drew out a history far richer than this one situation, allowing the trainee’s real feelings to surface. She (the trainee) was able to grapple with her self right there in session rather than just talking about it: how she tried to be perfect to gain her parents’ love, and how from a history of falling short she learned it was less painful to not try so arduously. It was a deeply emotional experience, hard to believe it came from a hunch on why she was unprepared to work with a client. The trainer was just so patient—waiting out silence as the trainee made the connections to her history from the brief question she was asked. This was priceless in learning a process to repeat with clients. Trainees who completed the training dialogued about the difference in their clinical work when they were guided by a hypothesis, held a strategic plan, and patiently engaged with clients as they told their stories: It just totally redefines ‘‘active listening.’’ When really attuned to it, I feel so connected to the client, who really gets a much better session than just empathetic feedback. I can see the difference in their [clients’] eyes; they feel so deeply understood, as though I must have walked along side them in life. It just seems to speed up the entire process of therapy—one session is worth about 10—and these aren’t brief, solution-focused sort-of techniques. CASE EXAMPLE 1 We definitely did not focus on techniques of intervention in training. We struggled with ‘‘being’’ versus ‘‘doing.’’ As we understood and became more aware of ourselves, we seemed more capable of being with clients through strategically guided emotional connections that facilitated technical interventions, more attuned to where clients really were in session. For example, a trainee shared from her journal how she learned how her internal impulses give insight into the family she was working with. The trainer challenged me to consider my clinical choices while questioning emotions lodged in my being from my own family of origin. This gave me more information about my work: with this particular case, there were specific instances that I could view from the videotaped session where I diverted opportunities to activate the parents to meet their child’s need. With footage of these instances the trainer guided me through a deep exploration of my resistance to ‘‘go there.’’ I was not aware of this when the session was taped, but once highlighted by the trainer, I could see it several times in my work with this family and even other cases. Once thoroughly discussing my own fears of ‘‘bothering’’ or ‘‘burdening’’ my parents during my childhood, I had a greater understanding and connection with my work and this family. October 2009 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 375 Over time, training centered on the uses of what we were learning about our signature themes, termed by one student, ‘‘signature strategies.’’ We learned to better connect and understand our clients through our issues, and consequently where and how to better intervene to effect a change. Our weaknesses (signature themes) turned into clinical strengths. The trainee continues: Coupling this new self awareness with the dynamics of the rest of the system I was working with enabled me to see more in the family: these parents did not want to neglect their child’s feelings; there wasn’t anything apparently bothersome about her needs; they just had difficulties of their own that innocently distracted them, and her somewhat needless façade served them well. Operating from these hypotheses, extracted from the new found connection I had with the family, gave me a plethora of more appropriate ways to work as well as an ability to operate more intentionally in session. With such a small attempt at mastery of self in this way, I was encouraged to risk testing hypotheses for more information on a system, and to be more aware of what makes me determine how I proceed with clients. Meanwhile I had experienced the process of exploration and connection with the trainer, one I could now mimic with this child and her parents to help them truly understand each other better through shared experience in session. CASE EXAMPLE 2 The following transcript of a different case further highlights this process of exploration and connection between trainer and trainee and the template it offers trainees to use with clients. (While watching video footage of a session) Trainee: I don’t know why I speak so softly in this part of the session. The camera is right behind me. I must be whispering. Trainer: As you are talking to me, what is it that you are feeling or thinking, what is going on with you? Trainee: I remember thinking this sounds too familiar. I hope I’m not making my issues hers. Trainer: What feelings were you experiencing? What feelings accompanied that? Trainee: Being uncertain, I mean, obviously what she is saying is something I relate to. I guess I was worried about—is this really what she is putting off, or is she picking this up—is she putting this together or am I putting this together? But I felt like I left it pretty open ended: she was the one that brought up that she could have told her mother [about her struggle], but then ‘‘she would know I wasn’t perfect.’’ She had said that and that’s what started me with—Oh, wow—I have to be careful here—that there is something here that I have to be careful not to cross. Trainer: Oh. Cross? What were you inclined to do that made you feel like you might cross a line? 376 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY October 2009 Trainee: It wasn’t so much that I was inclined to anything, it was more—hey this is really familiar, I don’t want to make it my issue. The trainee struggles here with identification and differentiation. Later she tries to apply what she has learned in her training. Trainer: Now, when you were speaking in this low tone of voice, it reflected something. There was something about what was going on in there that made you lower your tone of voice. Trainee: Yeah. Trainer: It was so, sort of intimate. Trainee: Yeah, I was definitely—since she had walked in the room I was aware of what we [you and I] had talked about last time [in training]—how she sits and talks to me all the time and she’s crying and I’m like—oh, she’s crying [again]—I’m not connected to her. I was aware of that when she walked in the room, and I was trying to make a concerted effort to stay connected to her. I guess I thought that because in the past I wasn’t connected to her, I was hardened a little bit, and maybe my tone of voice was just that—I was trying to be more tender, more sensitive. Trainer: Was that the line—that you were worried about crossing? A line that would put you in more direct emotional contact with her—because you know she was talking on a common experience that you both had, and if in the past you have been protecting yourself from it, then you wouldn’t have been connected. If in this session you made an effort not to put up that shield, then you open yourself up to thinking more about yourself and your own experiences—family—and it made you more vulnerable. That’s the line you are worried about? Trainee: Well, right then [video clip] I’m not sure, but later in the session I think that I did cross that line, and became more vulnerable with her. I mean, I was even tearing up. One point when she was talking and she was really crying, I noticed a difference between past sessions when she has cried, and now when she was crying. She was in touch with her pain when she was there, connected to it [at that moment in session]. The trainee is making a covert, genuine connection with the client. She is identifying emotionally with the client while differentiating from her through awareness of the differences in their personal experiences, all nonverbally. The personal connection within professional boundaries seems to have created an environment for the client to access her own pain more deeply than in past sessions. Now the trainer and trainee dialogue about how this evolved. Trainer: How aware of your self were you? Trainee: I think I was aware that this is my issue too. I think this was the first time it came up in our sessions. I think I was pretty nervous here [in video clip]. Trainer: Do you know what you were nervous about? October 2009 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 377 Trainee: About interpreting it or leading it on to be my experience, when I know she has had a different one—like being able to sit back and listen and not jump in and ask questions [because of being nervous] that may lead her a different way. I was thinking, okay, this is where I need to keep my mouth shut and just listen and see how this comes out. And it did turn out to be more than I expected. Trainer: So you are realizing that this is your theme, and that you need to keep your mouth shut and listen? Trainee: Yeah. Trainer: Well doesn’t that suggest that if you hadn’t been monitoring your self that you would have opened up your mouth, and have been more busy talking rather than listening? Trainee: Yeah. Trainer: So what was it that you didn’t want to say? Why would you think now, at this particular moment, ‘‘I have to keep my mouth shut, I have to listen and not jump in and start talking?’’ You were on your guard about something, given what you just said. Trainee: Yeah, I think I was on my guard not to steer what she was saying—just to let her say it—so I would know how her experience is different from mine, or the same. Trainer: That’s good. . . . From what we discussed last time, and then how this woman reflects your experience, how you have become aware of it, and how that helped you make decisions to move more carefully so that you didn’t feed your stuff into hers. Trainee: Right. Trainer: So you talk about the differentiation process. Trainee: That’s it. Trainer: The tension between identification and differentiation. Trainee: And that’s what I felt, that tension there. Trainer: Then you were able to identify. Trainee: Right, without crossing that line. Trainer: Right. Trainee: That is that line that I meant I could feel. Trainer: This is a good example of the difference of identifying with and differentiating from—cause it’s too easy to talk about identification—but there aren’t too many examples of identifying while differentiating—but you just described it right on the nail. 378 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY October 2009 Trainee: All right! As shown, the connection we make to our own life experience, and the work required to do so in training, offers an opportunity to connect with clients’ struggles through our own struggles. This unverbalized connection seemed to seep between trainee and client in this example. The challenge then becomes to remain grounded in the differences of our own experience so that the intervention that follows reflects the client’s needs, not our own. We, the authors, found that working in this way changed our therapy, our clients, and ourselves. One year after the conclusion of the POTT pilot study the first author documented the increased gains made from continuing supervision that incorporated the use of self: The seeds sown during training are now bearing fruit. It is from this distance [one year out of training] that I gain deeper understanding of my development—as I watch my clients on their journeys, I recognize my own. Last week one client, resolutely pursuing her journey, said to me, ‘‘I realize I have been running my whole life—and recently I see I’m just running from myself—and I need to stop running. I’m tired.’’ I could see her making that transition from running to self-reflection. A series of sessions leading to her increased awareness and understanding of her past had broken through to insights that stopped her dead in her tracks. I remembered my own change in direction during training and contemplated her possible emotions. This allowed me to connect with her amidst her painful personal revelations. She began to relax and appeared reassured. She stopped feeling guilty for all her protective or defensive behaviors, and accepted them as her own personal brand of brokenness. Dismissing the pretense that she could and should eradicate every last drop of her problems, she began to embrace her issues as a means to growth: facing the normal challenges of life with a fresh understanding of her hang-ups has created for her a new opportunity to make healthier choices for herself. These healthy decisions have changed her. Being able to change the course of her life without having to disclaim her past has enhanced her self-esteem. While watching her change I stayed connected to my experience in training. She would be struck with some insight on the influence of her past, and then grapple again and again with what to do with it. I remembered asking the same question hoping for an antidote for the pain of the new awareness. I sensed the tension in her soul because I recognized it in my own, and revisited training sessions where my trainers would work with me in my struggle with myself. That connection, while knowing and accepting the pain allowed me to move forward in my personal journey. Some models talk about improving the person you are. This model just takes whatever you have, and through self-understanding and having access to your inner innerexperience of yourself, your perspective of yourself changes. You are freed to make new and better choices for yourself. As I reflect on my work with this client I know that I would not have been able to get her there without being there myself—how could I get her to accept that she was a wounded human like the rest of us, if I personally had not deeply grappled with my own self-acceptance? Before training, my perfectionist self was on a mission to eradicate all of my own problems in order to be a better therapist—I would have never thought that just 3 years later my brokenness would be my most favorite tool. October 2009 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 379 CONCLUSION From our experience as trainees, we see only benefits to adding this sort of experience to a master’s curriculum. We feel we are better therapists because of it. Such a rigorous exploration of self in our work, and the development of skills in the use of the self, profoundly impacted our orientation to therapy. This personal training experience occurred at an early stage of our formation as therapists, when our clinical styles had not yet taken shape. This seemed to foster a sort of clinical maturity: more confidence to use our gut-level instincts to orchestrate real human connections. Person-of-the-therapist training created a foundation on which we will build the rest of our careers: an accountability to work honestly and appropriately connected with clients, to be true and in touch with ourselves, and to model the connection we wish for so many of our clients (couples and families) amid life’s risks, tears, and intimacy. Finally, a refreshing sigh from our souls that as human beings who aspire to be therapists, ‘‘We live with our limitations’’ (Aponte, 1994, personal communication, January 27, 2005). As new therapists we learned that, yes, we can be helpful to our clients even with our human struggles—but much more than that—we will be helpful because we have learned to accept and value our own personal life journeys as priceless resources to understand, relate to, and intervene with clients. Since the conclusion of the pilot study, we both graduated to take up careers in the field. Lauren still pursues POTT via regular supervision with Harry Aponte. She remains excited to see how this will continue to develop her clinical skills, given the constant growth it has offered over the collective 4 years. Sarah has taken her person-of-the-therapist training, which she feels has had a profound effect on both her clinical work and personal life, to her new place of employment to work with families as a licensed marriage and family therapist. REFERENCES Aponte, H. J. (1994). How personal can training get? Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 20, 3–15. Aponte, H. J., Powell, F. D., Brooks, S., Watson, M. F., Litzke, C., Lawless, J. J., et al. (in press). Training the person of the therapist in an academic setting. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. Baldwin, M. (Ed.) (2000). The use of self in therapy. New York: Haworth. 380 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY October 2009