Personal and Professional Support…

A few years ago, we recognised the need to change our ‘supervision’ policy, and to differentiate between Personal Support, and Professional Support.

We found that due to friendships, transferences, time and other pressures Members were finding it difficult to obtain the right amount of support in both areas: some Members had a great mentor, but little personal support, others had great personal support (supervision) but no-one to help them build a successful practice.

More recently, we recognise that some of our Cognitive therapists are not dealing with disturbing information and are less likely, as a result, to need personal support.  They are still going to benefit from professional support in the form of mentoring, regular meetings with experienced practitioners or another form of supervision.   Members should do the supervision that is most appropriate for them and their practice.

Personal Support:

Personal Support = emotional, psychological and physical support

FOR YOU.

It’s all about you, it’s about keeping you sane, keeping you happy, not letting you get too stressed, not letting you get burned out. Personal Support starts the day you start your Personal Therapy (what we used to call a training analysis) and continues on throughout your hypnotherapy career.  Even those Members who undergo a textbook analysis of their own, still need good personal support – or they WILL get burned out sooner or later, it’s not a question of IF, it is WHEN. (Several high-profile IAEBP Members have burned out over recent years)

Basically, the less neurotic you are, the more insight you have into yourself , the less distortions in your own thinking, the less socially-phobic you are, and the happier you are, the more successful you will be as a therapist, and the more sane you will be in life.

How do you achieve this state?

Well, as we said above, it starts with your own personal therapy – if you’re dealing with difficult cases or survivors of abuse, you need to have cleared out as much of your own baggage as you can.  If you’re helping people to Thrive, you need to be Thriving yourself!

Personal Therapy aside, if you’re dealing with difficult cases, the next most important thing is that you have yourself some good old-fashioned supervision… someone to offload to, someone to talk through – the emotional effects of – difficult clients with, someone to talk about your own emotional state/stress/anxiety/relationships/boundaries/needs with.  It is getting increasingly difficult to get this type of support from another IAEBP Member, because we all know each other now!  Much like analysis, personal support will ONLY be effective if there is complete confidentiality, trust, safety and a non-judgemental atmosphere.

If, like most Members, you have some good friends in the IAEBP, then you can (obviously) talk to them about some of your ‘lighter’ issues and worries, but EVERYONE needs a dedicated support colleague.

We recommend that you find your support colleague from outside the IAEBP.   A counsellor or psychotherapist will allow you to talk about how your clients effect you, about your childhood, about your emotions, your blind-spots, your councounter-transferences, your relationships – anything that effects your psychological and emotional well-being.

How do you find yourself an external support colleague?
Much like how your clients find you…. phone a few up, go for a few initial consultations, tell them what you want, pick the person with whom you felt most comfortable. It’s probably best for the first few sessions to see them weekly, and then (when a good relationship is established) cut it down to once a fortnight, or even once every three weeks (depending on your personal needs)

You can choose any type of therapist (counsellor, psychotherapist, professional supervisor etc) but my suggestion would be to go for a psychotherapist who is UKCP registered – click here to go to the UKCP website.

Professional Support:

Professional Support = Help with clients, help building your business,
help being more successful, mentoring.

Professional Support is all about you getting help from an experienced therapist (or therapists) to: get your clients through therapy as easily as possible, to build your practice and gets lots of clients, to feel supported in what you are doing, and to have someone on hand who will be there for you and support you in your business and encourage you.

How does this work?

Historically, this type of support has always come under the banner of ‘supervision’, and has always been ‘peer to peer’, and free. Time (and experience) has demonstrated that this is not the most effective way to give support. Good Professional Support, much like good Personal Support, is much more effective in a professional, boundaried and ‘contracted’ relationship.

How many clients you see (on a weekly basis) will dictate how much support you need.

How many times have you thought to yourself “oh, I would phone so and so, but I don’t want to keep bothering them?” or “He must be really hacked-off with me, I’m always on the phone to him” or “it’s such a silly thing – I wouldn’t know who to ask”..

Well now those worries are a thing of the past….

If you already have a successful, professional practice, and you are managing your clients easily with your current Professional Support arrangement, then carry on as you are.

If you don’t have a busy, Thriving practice, and would like one…

Or, you are trying to establish a practice…

Or you are struggling getting memory reconsolidation with your clients…

Or your advertising isn’t working…

Then pick up the phone, and call one of the successful, professional and experienced IAEBP therapists below, and negotiate yourself a Professional Support Contract

OR

look on the forums and find out if there is a regular TCT training event or regional meeting near you, and go from there.

The Members below have been selected by Council, as ‘the right sort of people for the job’ Most have the IAEBP Advanced Diploma, most are training analysts, most are very ‘giving’ people and want to help, and ALL run successful hypnotherapy practices.

Please realise that some of these Members may not have the time currently to be on this program.  And there are probably some Members who should be on this list, who are not – those Members should get in touch.

Recommended IAEBP Professional Support Colleagues

Jon Manning
Karen Lally
Peter Cumner
Helen McElroy
Pauline Searle
Sue Wilson
Kieran Fitzpatrick
Gary Foster
Ruth Watson