Personal therapy of the psychologist: is it compulsory to practice?

At some roast, birthday or family table, every psychologist heard the same question: "Are you going to therapy?" Sometimes it comes in a chicana tone, sometimes with genuine curiosity, and almost always with the implicit suspicion that it would be rare that it would not. The question seems to be of occasion, but it has more depth than it appears: it touches on the statute of personal therapy of the psychologist, a subject that the profession discusses decades ago and that each colleague resolves in private.

Because the honest answer is less simple than a yes or a no. There are colleagues who have spent fifteen years of analysis and don’t imagine attending without that space, colleagues who closed their process during training, and colleagues who never went and wondered, with a certain discomfort, if that makes them missing.

In this article we order the discussion: what the law demands and what it does not, what the formations ask for, what personal therapy actually contributes, how it differs from supervision and how to choose therapist when the patient is also a psychologist.

The short answer: personal therapy of the psychologist is not mandatory by law

Let’s start with the concrete. In Argentina, personal therapy is not a legal requirement to obtain tuition or to exercise: no professional exercise law requires the psychologist to be in or have been in treatment to care for patients. You can enroll, open clinical practice and work your entire career without ever stepping on the clinical practice of another colleague, and no one will punish you for that.

However, the fact that it is not compulsory by law does not mean that the profession considers it a detail.

What the formations ask for

Many postgraduate courses do demand it, and some consider it to constitute the course. The clearest case is psychoanalysis: personal analysis (educational analysis, in training institutions) is not a complement to training but one of its pillars, together with supervision and theoretical study. The premise is that one cannot operate with the unconscious of another without having worked on one’s own.

Other currents do not formally require it, but they recommend it with different degrees of emphasis: formations in humanistic, systemic and third wave therapies usually include instances of personal or experiential work, and much of the trainers suggest it as a basic practice.

What Professional Ethics Says

Codes of ethics do not require therapy, but they do establish something that makes it difficult to avoid: the psychologist is responsible for not exercising when his personal conditions compromise the quality of his work. And to know if that is happening, you need some space where you can see it. Personal therapy is not the only one, but it is the most direct.

The instrument of work is you

Here is the core of the matter. A surgeon calibrates his instruments, a musician refines his instrument, a laboratory validates his equipment. In the psychological clinic, the working instrument is your own subjectivity: your listening, your ability to record what the patient produces you, your tolerance to the anguish of others, your personal history with everything that resonates when the story of the other brushes it.

That's not a cute metaphor: it's a technical description. Countertransfer, it's called that or otherwise according to the current, it's clinical information. What you feel in front of a patient (boring, annoying, tender, wanting to rescue him) says something about the link and the material at stake. But it only works as information if you can tell which part comes from the patient and which part is yours. An uncalibrated instrument doesn't stop measuring: it measures badly, and doesn't warn.

And subjectivity is not calibrated alone: no one has direct access to their own blind spots, by definition. You can read the entire bibliography on countertransfer and continue not to see that that patient irritates you because it reminds you of your father. That takes another one to listen.

What the psychologist’s personal therapy actually does

Let us lower the argument for observable purposes.

Detect blind spots

We all have areas of experience that we can't think about because they compromise us too much. In the clinic, these zones translate into topics that you don't explore, questions that you don't ask, hypotheses that you rule out too quickly. Personal therapy doesn't eliminate blind spots (there is always another), but it reduces their surface and trains you in the suspicion that they exist.

Separate yours from the patient.

When a patient relates a duel and you are going through one, when he talks about his partner and what he describes is too much like your home, listening becomes contaminated without asking for permission. A space of his own where that material is worked makes it less likely to leak into the session as quick advice, change of subject or silent identification that takes you out of the role.

Hold the role without overflowing

Clinical work involves receiving heavy material regularly and having no one to process it with, because professional secrecy limits what you can share. Personal therapy is one of the few spaces where that can be deposited with framing. It is not casual that it appears among protective practices when talking about preventing burnout in psychologists: those who sustain other people's processes need a place to be sustained.

Knowing what it feels like to be on the other side

This contribution is underestimated and enormous: to have been patient. To know in one’s own flesh the vergüenza to tell something for the first time, the irritation with a certain signpost, the desire to miss when the subject becomes difficult. That experience is not learned in any seminar and changes how you treat the resistances and silences of your own patients. It is difficult to ask someone to trust in a process that you were never willing to go through.

Personal therapy and supervision: not interchangeable

A frequent confusion, especially in the first years of exercise: to believe that with supervision it reaches, or that therapy can absorb what corresponds to supervision. They are different spaces, with different objects.

Clinical monitoring works on the case: strategy, hypotheses, interventions, treatment impasses. The focus is on the patient, although your involvement appears as data. Personal therapy works on you: your history, your symptoms, your bonds, your desire, including your relationship with the profession, without the obligation that everything should lead to a case.

A practical rule to guide yourself: if the problem is what to do with the patient, it goes to supervision. If the problem is what the patient does with you (especially if that happens to you outside of clinical practice), it goes to therapy. Often a topic starts in one space and the supervisor or therapist himself redirects it to the other: that is not a bounce, it is the system working well. What does not work is to use supervision as undercover therapy (the supervisor has no framing for that) or to use therapy as cheap supervision, where you talk about your cases not to talk about you.

When personal therapy ceases to be optional

You can discuss whether the psychologist should always be in therapy. What hardly admits discussion is that there are times when the space itself ceases to be a choice of style and becomes a condition to continue to attend well. Some signs:

• Patients that deregulate you. You leave certain sessions altered, rumming for hours, or you activate in session in a way that the material does not explain.
• Themes you avoid in session. There are areas (death, sexuality, violence, motherhood) where your patients never deepen, and you begin to suspect that you are the one who dodges.
• You wear out. New irritability, relief from cancellations, cumulative notes. If you recognize several of the early burnout signs, personal therapy is one of the first steps to consider, not the last.
• Own vital moments. Duels, separations, economic crisis, parentality, illness of one's own or of a relative. To go through a vital earthquake while sustaining ten processes of others without any space of their own is a risky bet.

Honest objections (and answers)

The reasons for not going to therapy are rarely said out loud among colleagues, but they exist and deserve an answer, not a sermon.

"I don't have time or money"

It is the most real objection, especially in the early years, when the fees are low and the agenda unstable. The uncomfortable answer is that personal therapy, such as supervision, is part of the cost structure of exercising: it is not a personal expense that competes with leisure, it is an input of work. That said, there are ways to make it viable: colleagues who serve colleagues with differentiated fees, services of training institutions, more spaced frequencies as a starting point. A sustained fortnight space is worth more than a weekly ideal that never starts.

"I've done years of analysis during training."

It may be true and sufficient for that moment. But practice changes and so do you: who finished his analysis to the 28 is not who 40 goes through a separation while caring for couples. Personal therapy is not a single dose vaccine: it is a resource that turns to when life or the clinic asks for it. Having done a good process before plays in favor, because you already know how you enter.

"Gives me vergüenza to be known in the environment"

Very little object said and very frequent, especially in small cities or endogamous circuits: the fear that your therapist will be a colleague of your colleagues, teacher of your graduate or supervisor of your friend. It is a legitimate concern with practical solutions: to choose from outside your institutional circuit and your current, or directly outside your city. The consolidation of online therapy greatly expanded the options: today you can analyze with someone 800 kilometers that does not share a corridor with your professional life.

How to choose a therapist by being a psychologist

Choosing a therapist is already difficult for anyone. Being a psychologist, they add up to the traps of the trade.

Same or different orientation?

There is no single answer. A therapist of your own current offers consistency with your training (and in some cases it is a requirement of it). One of another orientation can help you get out of the script: you don't know the movements beforehand and you find it harder to play local. The bottom line is what you would say to any consultant: more than the current, it matters that he is a good clinician and that with that person you can talk seriously.

The temptation to intellectualize

It is the occupational risk of the psychologist in therapy: turning the session into anatheneum. Diagnosing yourself before telling what happens to you, discussing the intervention of the therapist instead of letting him work, quoting bibliography as a shield. A good psychologist therapist knows the maneuver and does not buy it, but it helps to have a look at it: every time you explain your discomfort with technical vocabulary, you are probably avoiding feeling it.

Be patient, no mate.

In that clinical practice you are not a psychologist: you are a patient. It is not your function to evaluate the framing of the other, to provide hypothesis about your own case or to establish union camaraderie. If you notice that after months you continue to sit as a visiting colleague, that is a good topic to take to the next session.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it mandatory for a psychologist to go to therapy to enroll in Argentina?

No. professional license does not require personal therapy, either at the beginning or as a condition of permanence. Formal requirements come from training institutions: psychoanalytical schools require it as part of training, and various postgraduate courses include instances of personal work. Outside these contexts, it is a professional and ethical decision, not legal.

How many years of therapy does a psychologist need?

There is no number, and don’t trust anyone to give you one. There are colleagues who support decades-long analyses and colleagues who make limited processes and come back when they need it. The useful criterion is not the number of years but the function: to have a space available when the clinic or life asks for it, and the honesty of recognizing when they are asking.

Can I see if I'm going through a personal crisis?

It depends on the crisis and your resources to get through it. A duel or separation does not disable you from working: psychologists also live. The honest question is whether your situation compromises your clinical availability: if you cry between sessions, avoid issues that your patients need to touch or you cannot focus on each other's story. In that case, the responsible response usually includes personal therapy, more frequent supervision, and, if not, a responsible derivation of the processes you cannot sustain.

Does personal therapy replace supervision?

No, and the reverse either. Supervision works on your cases; therapy, on you. You may need both at once or prioritize one according to the moment, but it is not right to expect one to do the work of the other: the supervisor has no frame to deal with your story, and your therapist is not there to direct your treatments.

What do I do if I don't want someone from my professional environment to take care of me?

It's a valid and more common concern than you admit. Concrete options: search outside your training institution and your peer circuit, choose another current, or opt for online therapy with someone from another city. If crossing your therapist at a congress would make you censor material, it's reasonable to choose someone with whom that crossing is unlikely.

Summary

• In Argentina, the psychologist's personal therapy is not a legal requirement to enrol or to practice: no law requires it.
• Many formations do: psychoanalysis considers it constitutive (educational analysis) and other currents strongly recommend it.
• Ethics makes it difficult to avoid: you are responsible for not attending in conditions that compromise your work, and you need a space where that can be seen.
• The underlying argument: the working instrument is your own subjectivity, and an uncalibrated instrument does not stop measuring, mismeasures.
• Concrete contributions: to detect blind spots, to separate yours from the patient, to sustain the role without overflowing and to know the experience of being patient.
• Therapy and supervision are not interchangeable: supervision works on the case, therapy on you.
• Stop being optional when there are patients who deregulate you, avoid topics, burnout in progress or your own vital crises.
• Objections (time, silver, "I've already made years", vergüenza from the environment) have practical answers: it's part of the costs of exercising, practice changes, and choosing out of the circuit (or online) resolves exposure.
• When choosing a therapist, the key is being able to be patient and not a colleague: if you intellectualize each session, it takes that same session.