What does it mean to train as a psychosexual and relationship psychotherapist?
The Oxford English dictionary as the definition of vocation (from the latinvocare meaning to call), is defined as a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation…especially regarded as worthy and requiring dedication, but also includes a trade or profession. A profession on the other hand is defined as a paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification.
Or perhaps:
The client is the jewel, the focus and the reason for everything else that happens in the counselling and psychotherapy arena. The support scaffolding around this precious being comprises of therapists, supervisors, professional bodies, future regulatory body and training colleges all of which share the responsibility of witnessing, shielding, safeguarding, and protecting our clients, our psychological therapists, our wonderful profession of counselling and psychotherapy.
– Christine Moran, Academic Director at ICPPD (First Published Spring 2015, IACP Journal)
In my long career within psychotherapy, spanning almost 45 years I cannot help but notice the difference in student populations. The quest for areas of specialism rather than generic counselling/therapy. The interest not only in ‘the human condition’ but in our field and given the progress (some might say) in the understanding and inclusivity of psychosexual/relationship work, shows people’s real interest in the workings, or not, of the client’s relational world and a desire to fully embrace the intricacies of this.
When looking at the issue of a ‘calling’ in their book Make Your Job a Calling: How the Psychology of Vocation Can Change Your Life at Work by Ph.D. Dik, Bryan and, Ph.D. Duffy, Bryan says:
Because understanding what it means to have a calling can help each of us examine our own lives and identify how we can transform our careers and jobs in deeply meaningful, satisfying, and life-giving ways—ways that, directly or indirectly, make the world a better place
It seems clear to me that students on our courses have a career trajectory which speaks to the diversity and inclusivity of psychosexual and relationship work either in their existing practice, within their current employed work place or as a specialism for which they feel great enthusiasm.
It is undoubtedly true that students not only gain but throughout the training must give. Often seeing low cost/no cost clients, increasing their working lives by several hours a week, embracing academic rigour and examination, and they do all of this for a vison of how their working lives may, could or will be. And when they get to the end, they quite rightfully feel a real sense of achievement and pride in all that they have done and how their work has changed in ways they could not have foretold at the outset.
Judi Keshet-Orr – Course Director & Founder LDPRT
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