Have you tried these tests? I’d love to know what you think.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

So many people who embark on a career in psychotherapy/counseling of some sort have the altruistic notion that this is all about helping others. Sure, that’s why we are drawn to it. We tell ourselves that we have gone through so much, so why not help others to not go through the same thing. It’s somewhere in this fog that we can lose the most important tools for helping others.

I’m not here to say this isn’t an amazingly rewarding profession. It is. Especially when we see amazing changes. But there’s a lot more to this counseling thing that goes unnoticed or that is blatantly ignored. What do you bring to the table? How are you the therapist ready to be a therapist?

It’s unrealistic to say that a person has to have all their issues resolved to do counseling work. But, if you are not constantly observing yourself and your interaction with others, how can you support anyone to better themselves? The challenges I see that are the most difficult are within the therapist.

Some therapists retreat into their clients world so they don’t have to enter their own. Have you observed the therapist who seems at wits end, using every trick in the bag to support a client? Or the therapist who is endlessly searching for services for clients? How about the therapist who doesn’t ask for help? or has their own challenging personal relationships? Or struggles with their personal and professional boundaries? I’m sure you’ve noticed more that I can even mention.

As therapists in training, we work on a lot of the issues we don’t want to project onto our clients. But we inevitably do project. That’s really okay, as long as we notice it, challenge ourselves and work it out in some way so we don’t continue to do that. But often as seasoned therapists we may consider this internal work is done and since we don’t have a supervisor challenging us, it can get swept under the rug.

What are your thoughts about the ongoing learning process of being a therapist?