On Tuesday I met with my psychotherapist for our first official appointment. Having thought it through I opted for someone who was male and based close to home so that I could coordinate my therapy around work and other commitments. Having never had personal therapy before I can’t assume to know too much about how the therapist/ client relationship works and having met together initially I was a little unsure by what to say. Broadly speaking one would usually meet with a therapist to work through a specific issue or problem although in my case I’m meeting with ‘G’ on the basis that I’m an art psychotherapy student and receiving personal therapy is a compulsory part of my training (a minimum of 30 hours during the course of this year is required).
G and I first met briefly a few weeks ago to talk through his professional background and how we might work together. This meeting was also an opportunity for me to pick his brain and find out what unique service a psychotherapist provides. On first impressions it was a pleasant surprise to find out that G was very amenable with 25+ years of experience under his belt and used to accommodating students who required personal therapy. In describing his practice G pointed out that people come to therapy with perceptions though these aren’t reality. The role of the therapist is not to guess at ones reality but to work with their perceptions. Whilst basic I found this explanation to be really helpful in understanding the role of the psychotherapist as a facilitator, in which the onus rests primarily on the client to revise their own ways of thinking and on making discoveries for themselves.
Furthermore, this idea of ownership seemed to pervade most of our discussions. This was MY therapy after all, not anyone else’s. How was I going use it better myself as opposed to just ‘doing’ therapy because I had to? Evidently of the ideas that I’ve discussed with G this past week is whether or not I can bring artworks to personal therapy for the purposes of discussion. G is open to this idea even though he acknowledges that he’s not an art therapist.
