Across From the Therapy Sofa: Therapists’ Motivation for Their Career Choice.

Trendak, Julia (2020) Across From the Therapy Sofa: Therapists’ Motivation for Their Career Choice. Undergraduate thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

The aim of the current research is to gain a rich and deep understanding of the experience psychotherapists have from the point of wanting to become a therapist, to the point where they are now, working as one, from their own viewpoint; therefore, the aim is to investigate this experience of psychotherapists’ motivations for their career choice behaviour. The objective is to identify and describe factors which influence career choice of psychotherapists, and how the participants view them now, retrospectively, as working psychotherapists, by the aid of semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, to identify the re-occurring themes and patterns to understand the complex phenomena and the psychological mechanisms in psychotherapists’ experience of career aspirations. The research resulted in the discovery of 2 themes: Self inquiry, under the domain of Inner growth, and Being present with someone else, under the domain of Care for others. The results show that in the therapists experience of motivations, the theme of self-inquiry is influenced by the unconscious, and that once individuals embark on this self-growth, this then interacts with the theme of being present with another person, as personal woundedness that has been worked through creates possibility of increased relatedness for the client in the therapist. The findings are discussed considering the implications for therapist education and training.
Keywords: Motivation, psychotherapists, career choice, inner growth, care for others, wounded healers, the unconscious

Item Type:	Thesis (Undergraduate)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > Issues of Labour and Work B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > Psychology > Psychology, Applied
Divisions:	School of Business > BA (Honours) in Psychology
Depositing User:	Mr Kevin Loughran
Date Deposited:	28 May 2021 10:01
Last Modified:	28 May 2021 10:01
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/4875

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