‘Ugly’ Psychotherapists: How to Flourish Amid Misery
Years ago, a distinguished dramatist came to see me, not for treatment but, rather, for a research consultation. This gentleman hoped to write a new play about psychotherapists, and he wished to learn more about our world. I spoke to him at length, answering his many questions, and at the end of our meeting he begged me to introduce him to some fellow practitioners, so that he could “soak up the atmosphere”. As it happened, I had to deliver a lecture that very evening in front of a group of 100 colleagues, and I invited him to attend as my guest.
Several hours later, I presented my talk – a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy – and, after the applause, the playwright thanked me for having afforded him an opportunity to spend the evening with dozens of clinical psychotherapists. Although he congratulated me on my lecture, he underscored that he had devoted most of the time to studying the audience, confessing, “I hope you won’t be offended, but, if truth be told, I’ve never seen such an ugly group of people in my life. Your colleagues look so miserable.”
Needless to say, this observation shocked me. Although most psychotherapists have never worked as fashion models or films stars, I do not regard the members of my profession as particularly ugly. But, in the weeks that followed, I began to acquire a better understanding of the playwright’s uncharitable diagnosis. Many of my colleagues do often look very burdened, with grey eyes and lined faces. No doubt I, too, wear such expressions, especially after having spent an entire day listening to so many tragic tales of suffering.
In view of the fact that our professional work may sometimes be ugly, full of tales of sexual abuse, bereavement, and madness, how do we survive the weightiness of this work? In 1993, a noted psychoanalyst, Dr. Nina Coltart, published a book entitled How to Survive as a Psychotherapist. At the time, I found this short text very helpful. But as the decades unfolded, I became increasingly keen to find ways not only to survive this often-ugly profession but, moreover, to flourish. So, I sat down and wrote some 60,000 words about the ways in which I, and some of my more creative and energised colleagues, have endeavoured to blossom.
One cannot flourish as a psychotherapist simply by treating oneself to a long lunch-break or to a walk in Regent’s Park, however delightful such experiences may be. On the contrary, one can only flourish by having the internal resiliency to master this extremely challenging field of endeavour, and by enjoying the external support and encouragement of a large community of gracious mentors, comrades, and students. They can help us to develop not only our clinical practice but, also, our role within the profession as lecturers, as writers, as researchers, as politicians, as innovators, and as role models. In my experience, far too many psychotherapists approach this work from a passive state of mind rather than from an active one, often keen to avoid collegial envy.
In my new book, How to Flourish as a Psychotherapist, I offer a detailed developmental model, explaining how people in our field can achieve the maximum rather than the minimum across the life cycle. Thus, I describe how to flourish as a trainee, as a newly-qualified practitioner, as a seasoned clinician and, ultimately, how to retire and how to die feeling fulfilled rather than disappointed, confident that one will have achieved a meaningful legacy.
Although psychotherapists often swim in the ugliness of trauma, we need not become trapped in such ugliness. On the contrary, if we enhance our own more attractive, creative capacities, we become far greater sources of trust and inspiration to our patients or clients. I hope that this new book might provide us all with an opportunity to review our own state of enrichment (or lack thereof), and to consider how we can encourage one another to raise the bar.
How to Flourish as a Psychotherapist, by Professor Brett Kahr, is published today by Phoenix Publishing House.
Brett has worked in the mental health field for over thirty-five years. He is Senior Fellow at Tavistock Relationships, Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London, and also Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health, as well as Consultant in Psychology to The Bowlby Centre, also in London. He holds registration as a psychotherapist of both adults and, also couples in the British Psychoanalytic Council and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.
A former Chair of both the Society of Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists and of the British Society of Couple Psychotherapists and Counsellors, he serves as Series Co-editor of “The Library of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis”. An experienced teacher, he has lectured on psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, psychopathology, and related subjects since 1979, he has held the Richard William Hopkins Memorial Scholar at Cornell University, a University Fellowship at Yale University, and has been a Visiting Scholar at Emory University.
He currently teaches in the Regent’s School of Psychotherapy and Psychology at Regent’s University London. He has a long-standing interest in disseminating psychological ideas through the media, having served for several years as Resident Psychotherapist on BBC Radio 2 and as Spokesperson for the BBC mental health campaign “Life 2 Live”. In recognition of this work he became Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Roehampton in 2009 and consultant to the Arts and Humanities Research Council network “Media and the Inner World”.
