What Therapists Get Out of Psychotherapy: Six Core Themes

When therapists are in therapy, what do they find most valuable?

This was the central question of a study led by Marit Råbu of the University of Oslo. More specifically, she and her colleagues were interested in how psychotherapists would experience being patients and confronting their own painful experiences and how this might shape their work as clinicians.

To investigate this inquiry, she and her team recruited eight psychologists aged 30 to 40 and conducted a three-step inquiry into the participants’ experiences in therapy.

First, the investigators asked participants to write reflective notes in response to the following interview prompts:

1. Why did I go to therapy, and what did I expect?

2. How did my therapy experience affect me personally?

3. What did I get out of it?

4. What effect did my therapy experiences have on my work as a psychotherapist?

As a second step, the participants engaged in a full-day focus group to read each other's notes and discuss their experiences in therapy.

The third step involved submitting a post-discussion reflective note using the same interview prompts as in step one.

What did Råbu and her collaborators find? The participants’ narratives yielded six themes and revealed that in therapy, they worked on “real problems with real suffering.” In other words, treatment was not purely a learning or intellectual exercise. The results of their study are summarized below.

Theme 1: The Suffering – Real Needs. Through therapy, the participants’ lived experiences of suffering were validated—and they realized that their need for therapy was real. Most participants had difficult and burdensome relationships in their early years, eventually leading to complications and difficulties later. One interviewee shared: “My father was an alcoholic and a gambler, and my experiences with him had an effect on my way of relating to others.”

Theme 2: Ambivalence of Sharing Vulnerability. As patients, the participants wondered: "Am I in therapy as a (future) psychologist or as the person I am?" and "Will my therapist think that I am too vulnerable or too emotionally unstable to be someone who can help others?" The psychologists in this study realized that if they approached their therapists as colleagues rather than patients who were there to address their personal struggles, it would not benefit their own healing journeys.

Theme 3: Living the Language of Psychotherapy. The participants’ realization that the words they used to describe their personal vulnerabilities “reached” another person (i.e., the therapist) was profound for them. They had feared whether they would be accepted by their therapist and if they could be understood. They expressed relief that they could be understood and that it was possible to make meaning of their experiences with their therapist.

Theme 4: Therapists Become So Important That They Can Easily Hurt. The interviewees underscored the importance of humility and relational power in the therapist-patient relationship, especially when processing frustrating, confusing, and/or painful experiences. A participant recounted that their therapist “sided with my mother” when they were exploring a personal dynamic: “It made a huge impression on me. That is something I have kept in mind: how hard it can hit if you are a therapist and you are crass or annoyed with a patient.”

Theme 5: Addressing Shame Together. The interviewees harbored concerns about being vulnerable with their therapist, expressing fears about “being too much or being too troubled” to be a psychologist. Their doubts ranged from, “Am I a burden?” to “What does she really think about me?” to “Will I be able to help others when I am this vulnerable?” Addressing and processing the shame related to their vulnerabilities also proved particularly salient.

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Theme 6: Using One’s Therapist as an Inner Model When Working with Patients. The interviewees internalized their therapists as role models and, in turn, drew upon their therapist’s approach when working with their own clients. They characterized their therapy as a forum of learning that extended to their own development as a clinician. One participant reflected:

"The therapists have had an impact on me as a sort of model learning. I notice that what they have said to me has affected me, for instance, the metaphors they have used, that I keep and bring with me. Sometimes they are not that useful when I re-use them, but other times I have found them to be helpful. Then it feels like I have my therapist with me on my shoulder in the session, and that feels good."