Coming to life in the face of death: Exploring effectiveness through therapist stories of self and work when the therapist is seriously ill.
Therapy occurs through a meeting of selves between client and therapist. In this relational activity, use of self is of paramount importance in the therapeutic endeavour. However when a therapist becomes seriously ill this potentially introduces unexpected drama into the therapeutic relationship. What happens to the therapist’s sense and use of self when faced with a life threatening illness, and is it possible to remain effective?
Much literature of the past thirty years tends to provide therapist’s personal accounts of serious illness and provides case discussion through the lens of the preferred therapeutic approach. The workshop explores how both beginning and established therapists regard the illness experience in relation to their clients, preferred therapeutic approach, and the clinical and ethical decisions in the intimate moments of their practice.
Utilising the differing illness narratives proposed by Frank (1995), the paper explores diverse responses to the life threatening illness including the possibility of a diminished or enhanced sense of self for client and therapist alike. A tentative model is proposed. The paper raises questions regarding self-disclosure, the transference relationship, subjectivity, ethics, personal therapy, and supervision. Here therapists face the dilemma of honouring professional discourse or something essentially more human between client and therapist. The paper has implications for therapist training, supervision and personal therapy.
