Competence and Self-Care in Counselling and Psychotherapy

193 Pages·2014·1.278 MB·English

by  Gerrie Hughes

Competence and Self-Care in
Counselling and Psychotherapy
What is it that makes a counsellor or psychotherapist competent?
In Competence and Self-Care in Counselling and Psychotherapy,
Gerrie Hughes offers a framework for understanding what being
competent means for individual practitioners, both generally and in
moment-by-moment work with clients. Divided into two sections,
Part I, ‘The competent self’, and Part II, ‘Care of the self’, the book
explores care and replenishment of the self as an essential requirement
for maintaining competence.
The Competence Framework presented here suggests that the three
elements of Practitioner, Client and Context are essential factors for
making good therapeutic choices, as well as offering a structure for
reflection, either individually or in supervision. The eight principles that
elaborate on these elements provide a route to explore competence that is
relevant for any theoretical orientation and appropriate for practitioners
at any stage. The reader is encouraged to make their own exploration of
a number of factors that influence competence and to identify develop-
ment of the self as both a necessary preparation for therapeutic work and
as a continuing outcome of being a therapist. In addition, Hughes empha-
sizes the importance of having a sound ethical framework and utilizing
professional structures as well as examining the contribution of super-
vision to the development and maintenance of competence.
This book is an ideal choice for counsellors, psychotherapists, super-
visors and trainers who wish to maintain a robust standard of practice
and for those employing them.
Gerrie Hughes has a private practice in Cardiff and writes both fiction
and non-fiction. She trained in Gestalt psychotherapy after leaving her first
career with British Gas. She has more than twenty years’ experience as a
therapist, supervisor and trainer and has worked in the NHS, in education
and in a number of training institutes.
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Competence and
Self-Care in Counselling
and Psychotherapy
Gerrie Hughes
First published 2014
by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Gerrie Hughes
The right of Gerrie Hughes to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hughes, Gerrie.
Competence and self-care in counselling and psychotherapy/Gerrie Hughes.
—First Edition.
pages cm
1. Counseling—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Psychotherapy—Moral
and ethical aspects. I. Title.
BF636.67.H84 2014
158.3—dc23
2013034459
ISBN: 978-0-415-82806-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-82807-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-81440-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Times
by Book Now Ltd, London
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
PART I
The competent self 5
1 What do we mean when we talk about competence? 7
2 How do we define competence? 19
3 The development of self 30
4 The diverse self 43
5 Becoming a practitioner 61
6 The competent practitioner 86
7 The influence of the client on competence 94
8 Context: the significance of setting 113
PART II
Care of the self 127
9 Highlighting professional self-care 129
10 Highlighting supervision 143
11 Highlighting personal self-care 161
vi Contents
Conclusion 171
References 173
Index 178
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Kate Bowman, Keith Hackwood, Susan Sutherland and
colleagues at BCPC for your support. Special thanks to Linda Ford for
your help and encouragement.
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Introduction
Counsellors and psychotherapists, in the main, do their jobs with sincer-
ity and compassion. There are many benefits: being involved in a worth-
while endeavour that makes a real difference for people; encouragement
to be concerned with their own personal and professional development,
and a sense of belonging to a profession that is gaining recognition as
it continues to evolve. There are also risks. Having continually to be
open to deep distress, available for connection with one person after
another, and working alone, relying solely on their own resources to sup-
port them, can gradually deplete practitioners. This book is about how to
maximize the benefits and deal with the risks, so that the experience of
both practitioners and clients is enhanced.
Being human, and vulnerable, and flawed, practitioners misunder-
stand, react inappropriately and make mistakes. While this can often be
therapeutic for clients – if the aftermath is handled sensitively – it leaves
practitioners with a question. Is this difficulty the natural consequence of
two human beings meeting together as authentically as they can, or is there
some deficit that could be made good? Possible answers to that important
question are offered in the following chapters.
I did not set about writing this from a place of unassailable compe-
tence, but from the position of a practitioner who has to deal with day-
to-day challenges as best I can. When I fail, as I often do, I appreciate the
support I receive from supervisors and colleagues as I try to learn what
lessons I can from the situation. It is important that, as a profession, we
accept that each of us has limitations, and ensure that there are structures
in place for when things go wrong.
Each of us is different, so every individual would have her or his own
way of being competent. The book is structured so that readers can iden-
tify what being competent means for them, regardless of the orientation
of their training and length of time in practice. While I use examples from