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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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