Do Therapists Have Therapists? Their Own Therapy in Psychodynamic Training

The person treating you has been in your shoes. How long depends on the approach.

The differences between the approaches are greater than most practice websites let on. And what happens in the degree program has little to do with what you expect.

Personal therapy means that anyone who wants to provide psychotherapeutic treatment to others first goes through therapy of their own. In psychodynamic specialist training, this happens mainly as individual personal therapy, also called training therapy, plus a fixed portion in a group.

The dictionary defines the German term, Selbsterfahrung (literally “self-experience”), more broadly: it refers to any experience a person has with themselves. In depth psychology-based psychotherapy, the term stands for something narrower, namely a prescribed part of the training, counted in hours.

The Licensing Regulations, which have governed the degree program since September 1, 2020, do not use the term “personal therapy” even once. The term used there is “self-reflection”: alongside the degree program, in seminars and practical exercises, with at least two ECTS credits in the master’s program.

Two ECTS credits are one module among many. If you want to know how much work your therapist has done on herself, ask about her specialist training. Her degree says little about that.

The practitioner’s emotions are part of the approach. The Psychotherapy Guidelines explicitly define depth psychology-based psychotherapy as treatment that takes transference, countertransference, and resistance into account. The therapist’s own reaction is thus the subject of the work and not a disruptive factor.

One’s own feelings during treatment, known as countertransference, are inevitable and diagnostically valuable. The key is being able to distinguish between what comes from within and is part of one’s own history, and what this patient triggers.

Those who are aware of their own patterns can purposefully use their own reactions in the therapeutic relationship as a source of information. This protects patients and, at the same time, provides insight into the other person’s internalized relationship patterns.

In my experience, that is exactly what I gain from my own therapy: the ability to distinguish between my own feelings and thoughts and those that may be triggered by the person I'm interacting with. It also helps me put myself in other people's shoes.

I also bring this ability to distinguish and put myself in others’ shoes into my current work as an online psychologist. I offer depth psychology online counseling, not psychotherapy and not treatment.

Between 100 and 330 units, depending on the approach. One unit lasts 45 minutes. Unlike in many counseling professions, this is mandatory in psychotherapy.

The group portion is the same for all four approaches. The entire difference lies in the individual setting: arithmetically, that leaves 250 units in analytical psychotherapy, 45 in depth psychology-based psychotherapy, and 20 in behavioral therapy. This is exactly the order in which transference and countertransference play a role in the three approaches.

These figures apply to specialist training, which, since the reform of the Psychotherapists Act, comes after the degree program and the license to practice. Those who completed the earlier training are subject to the 1998 Training and Examination Regulations: 120 hours for all approaches alike.

The breakdown by approach only came with the specialist training. A direct comparison of the two figures is misleading because the old regulation refers to hours, while the new one refers to 45-minute units. The old training still runs until September 1, 2032, and in hardship cases until August 31, 2035.

Only recognized facilitators are permitted, and recognition is contingent upon independence. Even the old regulation excluded from leading personal therapy anyone who is related to the candidate or on whom she is economically or professionally dependent. The Licensing Regulations draw the same line in the degree program: the examiner should be someone who has not taught the module.

The reason is obvious. During therapy, people discuss things they wouldn't want to reveal to someone who will later have a say in whether they're admitted to the exam.

Less certainty than the numbers suggest. Whether personal therapy improves treatment outcomes has not been reliably studied. The number of hours in specialist training regulations says something about the effort someone has put in, and nothing else.

Still, I think that the better a therapist understands herself, the better she can treat her patients. That's my position, and there isn't much research on the subject.

I find that therapists who have had little or no personal therapy themselves come across as disoriented and helpless. They often hide behind advice and theories. Their patterns of experience often remain unprocessed, and as a result, they are unable to cope with certain emotions that arise during therapy.

Feel free to ask. What is interesting about the answer to how much therapy someone has had is less the number of sessions or years than the way the question is handled.