The Developing Practitioner

Writing this book has been the outcome of something that has puzzled me for a long time. As an experienced teacher and supervisor of psychoanalytic practitioners of various types, it has been no surprise to find that students starting out in their learning and practice typically feel deskilled and incompetent. This is well known in the literature on how psychotherapy students develop. For example, in an extensive research study of over 100 psychotherapy practitioners of different orientations and at different levels of development, the authors found the beginning stage characterized by a state of mind they termed “pervasive anxiety”. They accounted for this as follows: In our research study … we noticed the large theory-practice gulf experienced by the student. The student is immediately exposed to extensive new theoretical and empirical information and is then expected to perform adequately in practicum. The student at this level naturally lacks the competency to perform professionally and is generally painfully aware of it, even though much energy is invested in concealing it. (Ronnestad and Skovholt, 1993, p.398)