What makes a good therapist?
Essentially a good therapeutic practitioner is someone who can listen with neutrality and without judgement to anything which his/her client offers up.
Often the client will need to discuss such topics as would be unbelievably horrific and painfully shocking to the rest of the populace if asked to listen. The client may, for instance, examine issues of childhood abuse, neglect and violence and incidents which will have had a devastating knock-on effect into adulthood. The client may express feelings of profound unhappiness, cruelty from others, spine-chilling fears and gruelling attacks of guilt. These reactions would be hard enough for anyone to hear, to understand or to empathise with but the well-trained professional should take such an onslaught in his/her stride and not feel overwhelmed, outraged or disturbed by what is said by the client.
How does a practitioner become the ideal therapist?
The well-heeled practitioner will have spent a huge amount of time, a shedload of money and a barrel full of energy and dedication in investigating every inch of his/her psychic life prior to starting in practice. This hard work and commitment is that which will transform the practitioner’s psyche into one which does not judge his/her fellow human, which does not over-react in a sticky situation and which keeps a cool head even when the sea of existence is turbulent.
The reasons for attaining this utopian state is because the practitioner has reached the defining moment of his/her life. This defining moment will allow the professional to understand every reaction and motivation which he/she has experienced in the course of traversing life.
A defining moment may be, for instance, that time when:
– I hid under the kitchen table shaking uncontrollably because I was terrified of my mother’s wrath
– I stood by the fire trying to keep warm while my father exposed himself to me and masturbated
– I shuddered whenever my father came home drunk late at night
– I pulled the bedclothes over my head and pretended to be asleep when my brother came into the bedroom during the night
– I realised when my aunt forgot to collect me from school that I was deemed to be not important to my family
– My parents were endlessly rowing and me and my siblings were terrified
– I was terrified of my grandmother when she was on the warpath
– I felt so alone and misunderstood when my father died
– I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have been loved by my parents
– I feel enraged at the unfair treatment which I was subjected to at school and when my mother sided with my teachers
It will be easy for any client to detect whether or not his/her therapist has reached that defining moment of his/her life. Unconsciously the client can sense, without even being aware of it, whether his/her practitioner will be fully qualified to listen to his/her pain, to steer his/her therapeutic journey and to render assistance appropriately when required.
For these reasons, it is a sacrosanct requirement that every prospective practitioner who applies for admission to a JMHT Hypnotherapy Practitioner Course will be willing to undergo extensive personal psychotherapeutic investigation under hypnosis. This tactic will then ensure that all JMHT practitioners – who focus on in-depth psychodynamic methodology – will be well qualified to set up in practice.
If you wish to contact a JMHT practitioner, be sure to use your intuition when selecting your therapist carefully because you will be required to lay bare your soul in order to resolve your dilemmas. The more effort you can devote to your therapeutic journey, the more you will reap the rewards of contentment and freedom from emotive pain. Please, therefore, visit the “Find a Practitioner” page on the JMHT website (www.jmhypnotraining.co.uk) in order to discover the key to unlocking and resolving your personal issues.
Jacquelyne Morison
October 2023