Being able to practice as a psychotherapist is not only about having “a special sensitivity” or about the fact that we like to deal face to face with people. There are a series of skills, theoretical and also practical, that must be mastered in order to offer the best possible services.
The requirements to be a therapistIn short, they have to do with both our practiced skills and our knowledge acquired through training and study. Let’s see what they are.
What you can find below are a series of basic requirements that every psychotherapist must meet.
Whether or not it offers will depend on this. guarantees that quality service is being offeredso it is advisable to master all these areas of excellence.
1. Reject prejudices
Several years of psychological research show that, spontaneously and involuntarily, prejudices and labels appear in our minds when we begin to interact with someone we know little. This, which in certain contexts is useful, must be taken into account in the consultation, and that is why it is necessary to ensure that these prejudices about patients are identified and prevent their influence from extending to our most relevant decisions and analyses.
What it is about, then, is Constantly review what you believe about the other persondetect evaluations with little support and isolate their effect.
2. Learn to master silences
In a dialogue, like those carried out in psychotherapy sessions, silences are always something, they are never “nothing.” That is to say, They provide us with information and also produce an effectjust like words.
That is why among the requirements of a good therapist is the ability to master silences; You do not have to avoid them, but rather use them in the most appropriate way so that the sessions progress.
3. Self-control
Psychotherapists must learn to separate their own preferences from the objectives of the sessions they offer in consultation. That’s why They cannot be carried away by impulseswithin what is considered ethical. Although their work relies heavily on dialogue, that does not mean that they offer informal conversations in which both parties are more about presenting a good image than making the exchange of ideas useful.
4. The ability to read between the lines
Often, patients do not directly reveal certain information, but rather hint at it. This is something that happens very often, beyond the psychoanalytic interpretation of the mechanisms in which the unconscious is expressed. It may be that the other person, completely voluntarily, prefer to give only part of the information because you are embarrassed speak more directly.
In the same way, sometimes the interlocutor misses an idea that can be intuited if we analyze the type of speech used.
Psychotherapists increasingly work in collaboration with other professionals in the field of health and well-being. That is why, although the only party that acts in a professional role towards patients is the therapist, once the session has ended the work continues. establishing bridges of fluid communication with speech therapists, pedagogues, parents, teachers, etc.
6. Knowledge of the code of ethics
An essential point to guarantee that we act following a code of ethics. Offering treatments whose effectiveness has not been scientifically validated, for example, or talking to other people about details of a patient’s life that the patient has revealed in sessions, are clearly unethical behaviors that can be reported.
7. Ability to establish therapeutic bond
Therapy sessions consist not only of the information discussed in them, but also of the therapeutic relationship that is created between the different parties. To do this, we must gain the trust of patients, demonstrating that we do not prejudge or make value judgments about what is said, among other things.
8. Professional assertiveness
Therapists often find themselves in a situation where they must try to get the other person to talk about painful or embarrassing aspects of their life. It is necessary know how to deal with these issues without avoiding them so as not to inconvenience the patient. Now, it is necessary to do it tactfully.
9. Knowledge of the most effective techniques
Therapists must be sufficiently trained to know the tools that psychology has at the time of intervention. Furthermore, it is necessary to take into account that there are no universal solutions and that each problem has an associated treatment that has been scientifically validated for those cases.
Finally, therapists must know what the characteristics of different mental disorders are and how they are detected. This requires a lot of study and continuous training.
