“We had a constant battle”. The role of attachment status in counselling psychologists’ experiences of personal therapy: Some results from a mixed-methods study

Abstract

There has been curiously little empirical investigation into the experiences of psychotherapeutic practitioners undertaking a mandatory training therapy. We present results from a qualitatively-driven mixed-methods study designed to explore the way in which counselling psychologists’ attachment status and levels of reflective function intersect with how they experience the therapeutic relationship within their personal therapy. Participants were interviewed twice: once using Main and Goldwyn's (1998) Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) to explore representations of early childhood relationships; and subsequently using a semi-structured interview format, analysed via Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), to explore experiences of personal therapy. Meshing results from both sets of data showed that insecurely-attached participants experienced their personal therapy differently from secure or earned-secure participants, and were more troubled by a perceived disparity of institutional and interpersonal power within the therapeutic relationship. Results are considered in terms of the power dynamics within training therapy. Implications for training and future research in this neglected field are briefly discussed.