Since I began my internship at Ingham Regional, I have been met with a number of different challenges. None of these challenges are without merit; in fact, I expect that they will necessarily make me a better therapist and professional. One challenge relates to the way I use my practice. For the last three years (i.e. since I came to MSU), I haven't really been challenged to clinically apply the theoretical models that often conceptualize and direct the therapeutic process. This hasn't always been a problem, but it has given me the sense that therapy is not always as productive as it could be.
In supervision a week and a half ago, I was challenge by my supervisor to apply various theories, some of which I hadn't even thought of in years, to a particular case. This was stressful, because I couldn't always remember the various nuances of the theory. Afterwards, I made a commitment to be more theory-driven. I learned the theories, and for a time I practiced them, but I had fallen out of that practice. Of course, this makes me a better therapist by virtue of the fact that I have a road map. As a postmodern theorist, it is the collaborative nature of the therapeutic relationship that brings about change, but it is the road map that the client provides and we both interpret that gets us where we need to go. I don't change the client, and the "advice" I give (I would balk at that word anyway) doesn't change the client either. It is the co-created reality that we share in therapy that brings about change. That is an important lesson to keep in mind.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Theory and Practice
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2 comments:
Is there a common origin in the words "therapy" and "theory"?
No. No common origins. I had once thought of that too. Here are the real origins.
From the Wikipedia:
The word ‘theory’ derives from the Greek ‘theorein’, which means ‘to look at’. According to some sources, it was used frequently in terms of ‘looking at’ a theatre stage, which may explain why sometimes the word ‘theory’ is used as something provisional or not quite real. The term ‘theoria’ (the noun) was already used by the ancient Greeks.
Therapy, as I use the term, comes from the term "psychotherapy". From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
from Greek therapeia "curing, healing," from therapeuein "to cure, treat." Therapist formed in 1886; earlier therapeutist (1816), especially of psychotherapy practitioners from c.1930s.
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