Why Is It Important to Find the Right Therapist

It is of paramount importance for a therapist to take care of his own emotional health. To do good therapy, the therapist needs to accept himself, his experiences and difficulties. Therapy is a matter of mutual influence of a balanced relationship where no one is more dominant or subordinate to the other. Any indoctrination in therapy upsets this balance and will not help a client's progress and can hinder it. A client will not make progress in his personal growth leaving therapy merely mimicking the therapist. He needs the experience of revealing his true self in an empathic, warm environment to develop his self- confidence, self-esteem and to discover is own beliefs, needs and how he wants his life to be. Dealing with past issues, being aware of his own beliefs and prejudices, the therapist will attain as much objectivity as is possible and will be aware of his own assumptions in his communications and so not instil any of his dogmatic belief upon his clients. This also applies to when the client projects any of his feelings onto the therapist, making the therapist aware of what they are, his reactions to them and where they stem from. The knowledge and awareness the therapist gains from taking care of his emotional health and issues will allow him to convert it into useful tools to facilitate more profound work with his clients and produce better, more successful therapy.

Psychotherapy and counselling supervision is an arrangement which enables a therapist to discuss their work on a regular basis with someone who is experienced in both therapy and supervision. The basic principles of supervision are to aid the therapist in his personal and professional development, to the well- being of clients and to the efficacy of the client/therapist relationship.

A therapist should arrange for adequate and on-going supervision throughout his career as it has a major positive impact on his personal development and professional practice. The supervision process will ensure the therapist is addressing the needs of the client, monitor the therapeutic relationship and increase the value of the therapeutic process. It will increase the competence of the therapist by helping him to recognize any therapeutic errors, give him insight into any important points he may have missed or confusion he has over a client, where he may feel that they have been stuck at a certain point in therapy for too long. Supervision will support the therapists own personal style of working, give him the opportunity to widen his scope and increase his confidence. It will encourage continued self-development, self-monitoring and the monitoring of a therapists standard of work ethics.

The counselling and psychotherapy profession is largely unregulated where an increasing number of therapists are offering their services without the necessary credentials to do good therapy in the best interests of clients. They haven't themselves had any personal therapy