There is a big movement in mental health that incorporates those with lived experience into positions of consultants, peer mentors and clinicians. At one time, therapists were supposed to be omniscient experts, perfect bastions of mental health. I can't remember who did this, but I am always thinking about the story of a psychologist who quit the field because she originally entered it to learn more about herself, and felt that was wrong. I disagree.
I'm a big believer in the concept of the wounded helper - I think we are drawn to the field because our early experience makes us develop finely tuned intuition and a sense that we are supposed to be helping. This is not enough: a good therapist needs to have a strong theoretical orientation, ethical and legal knowledge, be current with research, have well developed clinical skills that are based in practice, not just what feels right. But I also think we're all there to learn more about ourselves as humans as part of the human condition. And a good clinician should constantly be in supervision to challenge this.
What scares me is those who are still ill, who don't see when they are not doing well, or who struggle to look or think past their own thoughts to see our clients and offer well grounded support. Or, really the system we work within that seems to encourage us to be ill and narrow minded.
I was thinking about this and Kay Redfield Jamison's other book, Touched with Fire (also in my pile), while waiting for the elevator this evening. In one of the apartments, a young woman practiced her violin, her strings echoing a deep, resonating ache that reminded me of dirty red-browns and tiptoeing up to periwinkle blues. I thought back to college, late nights at the photography studio, my actress roommate, perpetually auditioning, singing, dancing. I miss that. The intensity of learning and practicing a craft. Being surrounded by a passion that thrives and grows by being around itself.
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