[The psychotherapist and "his own" psychotherapy. Reflections on a difficult profession].

Abstract

In the field of psychotherapy one can see that many psychotherapists develop a special identification with the form of therapy which they learned and practice. One cannot find this kind of identification with the chosen therapeutic method in other fields of medicine (surgery, radiology, internal medicine, etc). The factors which lead to such a special identification of the therapist with the psychotherapeutic method he practices are reflected and described: They include first of all the hardly thought about motives of the therapist to chose psychotherapeutic training in a particular school. Then the influences of the peculiarities of the institutionalized work-parallel continuing education develop: The risk of emotionalized trainee-trainer dependencies, trainee-trainer identification with the associated strong delimitation towards the outside evolves.