Читать книгу Positive Ethics for Mental Health Professionals - Sharon K. Anderson - Страница 29

Your motivations for being a psychotherapist, and the needs that drive your motivations, are analogous to the fuel or energy that prompts you to enter the mansion and climb the spiral staircase. These needs and motivations are many and varied, including what Murray (1938) called secondary needs, such as the need for achievement, gaining and/or retaining materials, power or autonomy, affection-giving and receiving, nurturance, gaining knowledge and sharing it with others. These needs generate motivations for various professional activities, including gaining knowledge and helping others grow.

When we review statements of interest from prospective graduate students, we frequently come across a number of honorable motivations. These noble motivations usually match up well with the personal needs and stated experiences of students: “I like to help people and seem to be pretty good at it. My friends tell me I am a natural. I think this makes me a good match for being a therapist,” or, “My friends typically look to me for guidance. If they have a problem, I’m the one they contact.”

Other needs and motives do not appear on graduate school applications, because they don’t seem relevant or because students are a little ashamed of them. For example, most people want (and need!) to earn money to make a living. A need for achievement might motivate people to enter a profession that enjoys some prestige.

Some of our needs and motives can remain hidden, even from us. We might have an unconscious need to be in power; doing therapy is a way to exert our power in other people’s lives.

It is worth the time to uncover the personal needs that drive our professional ambitions (Bashe et al., 2007). Here’s an example of why it’s important to understand personal needs. This is from Sharon:

I realized during my internship year that one of my motivations to become a psychotherapist grew out of a subconscious drive to make sense of my own family dynamics. This realization came to light while working with an estranged couple. I saw the husband as non-emotional and aloof, and the wife as emotionally needy, neglected, and fragile. I felt good about my work with this couple until my supervisor reviewed the latest session. At one point, she stopped the recording and pointed out how I had really aligned myself with the wife and joined her in blaming her husband for their marriage problems. My first response was shock. My next response was “Ouch!” My professional ego had been pinched! My subconscious need to “fix” a family-of-origin relationship compromised my ability to connect with the husband of this couple. I wasn’t listening well and I was not being helpful to my clients. In this case, my purely personal need to make sense of my parents’ relationship inhibited my professional motivation to do good work.

Some personal needs and motivations are appropriate—in the right amount—and drive helpful professional behavior. For an analogy, think of nitroglycerine: In small doses, it can keep people alive. In larger doses, it’s deadly. Small doses of some personal needs, balanced with professional motivations and sensitivity, will work well. For example, a little psychological voyeurism (wanting to hear about other people’s private lives) might be a good thing when combined with compassion, respect, humility, helping, and objectivity. The voyeurism might help you develop respect. It might keep you interested. Another example is your financial and power needs. These two needs, used appropriately, allow you to do what you do and to achieve your larger goals of helping and service.

The bottom line: Psychotherapy is a profession, which means you don’t just get to do what you want to do. Although your personal needs play a role, your primary motivations need to be professional and moral (Kitchener & Anderson, 2011; Rest, 1983, 1984, 1994).