The arduous road to becoming an analytical hypnotherapy practitioner requires that, in order to qualify, the trainee must undertake his/her own personal investigative therapy as a prerequisite for qualification.
Let us just review why this is such a vital ingredient for any would-be practitioner – although it is frequently, and scandalously, avoided by those embarking on a cognitive-behavioural practice.
We do personal therapy in order to benefit the practitioner and to benefit the client which will then have a knock-on effect in society as a whole.
Benefit to the practitioner
We all accumulate a shedload of psychological malaise as we grow up and throughout life. In childhood our emotional baggage can be profound because we are at the mercy of our parents who are also steeped in their own psychic trauma.
No-one ever escapes this demon unscathed when growing up which can be a stressful experience because the child is dependent on others for his/her survival and hence he/she must comply with the demands of those grown-up supposedly all-knowing carers. When a child is reliant on others for his/her very existence, of course, he/she can lose sight of himself/herself by handing over his/her learning capacity, reasoning ability and self-determination to another. Hence the adult, when heavily influenced as a child, can readily believe what corrupt politicians say, can adhere to outmoded doctrines, cannot cope with decision-making in the everyday world and, furthermore, may not accept self-responsibility.
Even in so-called happy families there may be unavoidable conflict. The child, for instance, will need to be disciplined by his/her carers and this regime can have an oppressive effect if it is not rendered as kindly guidance. The child may feel neglected when Mum or Dad goes out to work and does not have enough time to devote to the family. Mum and Dad may simply be emotionally distant by nature and thus the child will feel unloved because of the apparent scarcity of affection. And these examples are the ones whereby the child escaped lightly. If parents were aggressive, fearful, guilt-ridden, dishonest, maladjusted or pathologically withdrawn, then the child will inevitably suffer profoundly. If a parent is absent or non-existent, this will also have an untold effect. The child, furthermore, cannot naturally understand Mum and Dad’s psychological disposition or the subtext behind their motivations.
The child must also contend with the rough and tumble of schooldays when he/she enters a competitive world with further discipline, unjust rules and dysfunctional classmates. And the workplace, when it is finally reached, may be a hotbed of strife because it will be manned by those whose early-life suffering will emerge when all are struggling to earn a crust.
It will be as if the child and young person will be continually bombarded by bucket-loads of unhappiness, strife and flak from the moment of conception. This legacy will then be carried around in his/her unconscious mind for decades doing infinite damage to self and others all the while it is buried, unacknowledged or negated. Psychological baggage thus needs to be sorted out so that the individual can lead a full life, can realised potential and can relinquish concealed childhood pain and suffering which puts a damper on his/her existence and impairs his/her relationships with others.
The clinical practitioner, consequently, must without demur take the plunge into therapy in order to gain self-knowledge, to understand the world in which he/she resides and to attain emotive freedom in the process.
Benefit to the client
Most clients, of course, have not led idyllic lives. The average client will be looking at life through an unnecessary fog and he/she will continue to suffer until resolution can be realised. So, as a prospective practitioner, why even contemplate helping another if you have not run the gauntlet yourself?
We all have a tendency to work out our unresolved psychological baggage on those whom we know intimately – such as the client. We may unconsciously manipulate our partner, we sometimes yell at the kids, we often react adversely to criticism, we spontaneously flinch when the shadow of authority passes over us until we can take that intrepid step towards unwinding and resolving the past. Unwanted habits, negative repetitive patterning, unproductive behaviour, unsociable conduct, lack of commitment to a relationship or a project will all be evidence that there is malaise in your soul. So why foist this psychological baggage on to your client?
An understanding of yourself will, furthermore, allow you to understand the workings of the human mind, the way in which the human organism can be motivated by past experience and the way in which such trauma can be naturally resolved in the therapeutic context.
If you are reluctant to undertake personal therapy for any reason at all prior to qualifying as a practitioner, then your reticence will indicate that you are most in need of help. It doesn’t make any sense to go on living in a make-believe world forever. If you attend a course in any form of psychotherapy, counselling or hypnotherapy and feel that you do not need to soil your hands with personal therapy then you will be committing the ultimate crime of practising inefficiently, unethically and irresponsibly.
It is, consequently, vitally important that the prospective practitioner irons out all creases in the fabric of untoward past experience before it gets unknowingly hurled at the client. This sacrosanct rule might also usefully apply to all those in the caring profession from healthcare practitioners, social workers, teachers and, indeed, anyone whose occupation entails close contact with others on a regular basis. Every mortal on the planet needs a goodly dose of investigative therapy – especially the practitioner who engages in any form of encounter with those whom he/she seeks to help.
The news headlines bring reports of war, corruption, injustice, deceit, crime and man’s inhumanity to man on a daily basis – so much so that these accounts become commonplace and are intermingled with advertisements encouraging the populace to lead a fantasy life, to reach for the stars and to reinforce one’s self-image in the eyes of the world. Perhaps ask yourself why such atrocities occur so frequently and why the criminals escape the hangman’s noose? The answer lies in the daily evidence of unresolved emotional trauma which could easily be addressed effectively. So by changing yourself you change the world for the better rather than merely paying lip-service to creating a better world.