Repetición de muestreo con factor de 4

Participant A2 felt the extent that your personal psychotherapist’s orientation would influence one as a trainee is hinged upon whether their paradigm resonates with one. Senior psychologist E2 recalled how his personal psychotherapist shaped his identity as a

psychoanalytic psychotherapist. The psychoanalytic orientation “fitted me to the tee”. Participant E2 highlighted that “personal therapy fitted with my theoretical orientation” in terms of masters training.

You are so vulnerable when you start psychotherapy you will organically grow into that theoretical orientation… First year as an undergraduate I went to a therapist. The five years of therapy moulded me in that realm of how to

experience myself. I thought of myself in a Psychoanalytic way- the unconscious

(Participant E2- Integrative model at UP).

She was just my ideal of a therapist... I was blessed with the most wonderful therapist. She was trained by Winnicott actually. She was Psychodynamic, but not at all rigid. She could take anything, everything, work with it. Uhm, not laidback,

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intense with me… That was a big factor-personal therapy was-, I couldn’t have done it without that. I was fortunate that I had someone who I wanted to

internalise. It would have happened anyway. It happened very strongly, but she was a very relaxed therapist… she wasn’t overly anything. She was just herself. She had her own way of doing therapy and she was just fantastic (Participant E5-

University of Potchestroom (now NWU)).

For Participant E2 learning a theoretical orientation and personal development of the psychotherapist were significantly interlinked. “Your identity as a psychotherapist is a priority

then explore other theoretical orientations, as patients don’t necessarily fall into your frame of reference”. He emphasised the importance of being exposed to “a proper theoretical basis” in

order to learn effectively. He then felt “after registration, then explore” and work towards integration of theoretical orientations.

Obviously, when you are in masters you are consumed by what you are doing and what you are studying. But, shortly after that I was – I always had a questioning mind about, ‘What are the other orientations about?’… in order to, I suppose, develop my own repertoire, I sought out personal therapy with a therapist who comes from the Psychodynamic orientation (Participant C7- Systemic orientation

at Unisa).

The findings of the current study suggest that student or intern psychologists choose a specific individual who they admired to help them make a theory their own.

In training I enjoyed them (supervisors). They, obviously, guided the process to a large degree, but also brought an element of looking at your own development as a therapist. And, I think to a large degree also influenced my therapy… she (supervisor) exposed me to it (Psychoanalytic Therapy)… So, in terms of the reading she would say, “Ah, have you read about this one?... I would not have read about those… I would not have gone there because I didn’t know. So, she really did guide me… I was also lucky… we gelled well! I might have been with… a different supervisor and felt quite differently about supervision (Participant C6 -

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But, I think my main paradigm which I resonate well with is Psychodynamic… I just sort of linked myself with the philosophy of it, with the understanding of sitting with a human being and working in the here-and-now transference, that’s something that really.

… I think it was also a large portion to do with the lecturer that took me… she’s brilliant and she’s so passionate with it. And, she literally showed it to me in a very experiential way... She said, “Read the textbook and then we’re going to discuss what the chapter says and then we’re going to practice it”. And likewise, my supervisor did the exact same thing, helped me to identify what the

transference was… I had to transcribe all my therapy sessions from last year, and then hand it to them and then she would read them and we would go through them and she would stop and say, “How do you feel here? What was happening here? What was there? Why did you say that? Why did she say this?” So, in a sense she taught me to learn process, to read process through that way and then also identify how I was feeling and what was transference interpretations… I just developed that passion for understanding people and sitting on that human level… it for me sits with an individual in a uniqueness as opposed to a

prescribed set of- this is Cognitive Behaviour- “You’re thinking’ this and that’s why you”-… I don’t totally agree with that (Participant B5- Integrative model at

UJ).

Slowly, but surely, I think the experience I had with clients led me to start working more Psychodynamically… access to theory, so to kind of original readings… and, I think there is a lot to say about how lecturers guide you in terms of what to read and where to dig in… I think in your honours years you read a textbook and you go, ‘Oh, okay, it kind of makes sense?’. But, when you take a client and it’s a live client, and you take Freudian theory and Oedipal stuff and you apply it with that client. And, everything just starts fitting like a puzzle and making sense and giving you direction; that was quite exciting for me and very valuable. And, I think that contributed to the shift… they presented that in such a way that it started making sense in terms of which paradigm will work for me.

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I went into my second year of masters and I started using a lot of the theory we had learned and applying it to cases. I could bring that to supervision and entice that kind of discussion and then get more value out of it as well. So, I really want to say the theory and the application of theory is something that I think has contributed a lot to my development in terms of how I work, what value I get out of supervision and reflecting on cases (Participant A1- Integrative model at

Pearson Institute of Higher Education).

Participants spoke of their personal psychotherapists (B6, E2, and E5), specific lecturer(s) who enlivened theory (A1, A10, B5, C1, E3, and E4), or supervisors of their casework during training (B5, B6, C4, C6, and D3) or after qualifying (C4) that acted as a crucial link to digest or ground oneself (A3) in a specific theoretical paradigm.

The lecturers tend towards one paradigm, that’s what I mean, and it helps that we’ve got so much rich information from this one paradigm and I feel very equipped in it… I identify with it… I do believe I ground myself in the

Psychodynamic paradigm because it makes sense to me, it resonates with who I am as a person and how I’ve grown up to be, but not only that, Existentialism as well. So, it shows me that by me integrating, grounding myself in Psychodynamic Therapy and incorporating aspects of Existentialism, shows me that it wasn’t the influence of my lecturers only… (Participant A3- Integrative model at Pearson

Institute of Higher Education)

In speaking of their ‘theory translator’ it was evident how animated and enlivened the participants became when recalling how important this person was in their growth. This suggests that a psychotherapist’s theoretical orientation or an additional theoretical orientation reaches traction when they were able to foster a connection with a well-versed psychotherapist who embodied a theory that created a resonance with them. Participant C4, from the UKZN, recalled how a peer who could not identify with Psychoanalytic Therapy was assigned a CBT supervisor to ensure that he benefited from an identification process during training. Sound theoretical training was emphasised by participants (D3, and E4) who train or supervise masters students (E4):

I think in terms of theoretical orientation, I think you only know so little when you’re an honours student. You need lecturers that open the world of therapy to

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you. You read about it and you think ‘Ah this is interesting!’ Until you see it and you need to find a supervisor or a lecturer that is passionate about a specific-, and must be very good in what he or she is doing. If I now think in terms of the Humanist Existential lecturer, excellent in his work. Excellent! He was really a person that you could learn from.

At the same point, Prof. G ... and the other people that I’ve met that all came to South Africa, you could see without arrogance, they were so just- excellent, they could make a change. And, that I think is the thing that stands out for me: ‘To make a change, to see how I can change things’; which I realised is a very

powerful thing, but it is also a very challenging aspect (Participant E4- Integrative

model at UFS).

Henderson et al. (2007) regard entering the training context as likened to a “birth” and highlighted that its main purpose lies in providing the psychotherapist with a sound theoretical foundation to work with clients therapeutically. Whereas, internship is a specific milestone in the training period as it is specifically geared to practically testing out one’s training in daily client work, which will continue over the years in a refining process.

Knowledge is not sufficient and it does not make sense, unless and until you make it to make sense to you. And, how it makes sense to me, it’s through lived

experience. It’s through testing out over and over, and over again. And, making sure that the theory that I was given makes sense to me… Over a number of occasions or years… I want to see how you understand that theory, I want you to display or demonstrate to me how you understand theory. Then, I will say, ‘You are knowledgeable’ (Participant E3- Systemic orientatation & IPA model at

Medunsa).