Can a Psychotherapy Student Authentically Grow Under Academic Demands: A Heuristic Inquiry James N. J. C. Loh 2018 Can a Psychotherapy Student Authentically Grow Under Academic Demands: A Heuristic Inquiry James. N. J. C. Loh A thesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Of Master of Health Science 2017 Discipline of Psychotherapy School of Public Health and Psychosocial Studies Faulty of Health and Environmental Science i Abstract Psychotherapy practice is said to promote its client’s personal growth by creating an environment containing conditions needed for clients to authentically be themselves. This research aims to explore a parallel process, namely, to discover if a researcher and psychotherapist in training can achieve authentic growth during the process of writing a dissertation in an environment containing academic conditions and academic demands. This research asserts that accruing knowledge in training for a chosen profession benefits from being carried out in alignment with the way that profession values knowledge. However, the academic environment in which psychotherapy training occurs appears to include an intolerance of ambiguity, a demand to be clear and straightforward, and an assumption that privileges intellectual understanding, all of which are at odds with the value psychotherapy places on the inclusion of the unconscious and the unknown needed for authentic growth. Exploration of the tension between these two sets of values may prove a useful focus of inquiry for both the profession and its trainees. Using a heuristic methodology and method, and guided by Donald Winnicott’s idea of the “true self,” this research will seek to discover, during the dissertation writing process, aspects of that work which either promote or diminish the ability to grow authentically. Research findings will aim to assist psychotherapy students to gain more growth from their training courses, and also to assist psychotherapy training courses to consider possible improvements that could be made in the way in which future psychotherapists are trained. ii Table of Contents ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... I TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................ II ATTESTATION OF AUTHORSHIP .................................................................................. IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... V CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 CONTEXT OF STUDY ................................................................................................................ 3 KEY POINT OF CONCERN......................................................................................................... 4 AIM AND SCOPE .............................................................................................................................................. 4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ................................................................................................. 4 EXPERIENCE MATCHING THE LITERATURE ............................................................................ 5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................ 6 AUTHENTIC GROWTH USING FALSE SELF AND TRUE SELF CONCEPTS ................................ 6 TWO DIFFERENT WAYS OF KNOWING .................................................................................... 7 HOW PSYCHOTHERAPY LOST ITS WAY TO SCIENCE .............................................................. 9 LOSING OURSELVES TO QUALIFY ........................................................................................... 9 PROMOTING THE TRUE SELF – AUTHENTIC GROWTH .................................................................... 13 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................ 15 CHAPTER THREE: HEURISTIC METHOD AND METHODOLOGY ........................ 17 INITIAL ENGAGEMENT…………………………………………………………………. ..... 19 IMMERSION .......................................................................................................................... 20 INCUBATION…………………… ... ……………………………………………………......20 ILLUMINATION………………… ...... ……………………………………………………....21 EXPLICATION…………………….... ………………………………………………………21 CREATIVE SYNTHESIS……………… .... …………………………………………………...21 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................................. 22 iii CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS/FINDINGS ......................................................................... 24 INITIAL ENGAGEMENT…………………………… ...... ……………………………………24 IMMERSION ........................................................................................................................... 24 INCUBATION……………………………………… ...... ……………………………………27 ILLUMINATION………………………………… ...... ………………………………………30 EXPLICATION…………………………………… .. ………………………………………..30 CREATIVE SYNTHESIS………………………… .. …………………………………………31 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION .......................................................................................... 33 IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENT .......................................................................................... 33 LEARNING FROM THE FIELD OF BODILY ACTION ................................................................ 37 PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT .................................................................................................... 39 RIGHTING THE IMBALANCE BETWEEN FEELING AND COGNITIVE STATES ........................ 41 FOCUS ON MEANING ............................................................................................................. 44 SELF INITIATED LEARNING - I’LL DO IT MY WAY ............................................................... 45 GRADED BY THE LEARNER - DID IT WORK? ARE YOU RIGHT? DO YOU FEEL DIFFERENT?48 CHANGE IN BEHAVIOUR ....................................................................................................... 49 PROHIBITING GROWTH ......................................................................................................... 51 IMPLICATIONS TO THE FIELD OF PSYCHOTHERAPY ............................................................. 53 IMPLICATIONS TO THE WIDER WORLD ................................................................................ 56 CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS .............................................................................................. 57 STUDY LIMITATIONS ............................................................................................................. 59 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 60 APPENDENCIES ................................................................................................................... 64 iv Attestation of Authorship “I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which to a substantial extent has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of university or other institution of higher learning.” James Loh (Candidate) v Acknowledgements I would like to thank John Lambert and Sue Beechey, for generously supporting me with my learning disabilities and providing tools and resources to help me overcome writing obstacles. Andrew South at the AUT library for his wise counsel in searching for literature. David Parker, for all his direction and invaluable support in writing this research. Margot Solomon, for taking a class in support of writing a dissertation and Keith Tutor for his insight on the heuristic process. I would like to thank all my lecturers and classmates at Auckland University of Technology and my therapist Jyoti Smith, for their support and insight. My clinical supervisors Margaret Morice and Brigitte Puls, for helping me make meaning of new unconscious insight. My friends and family for their support and especially my parents See Loh and Val Loh for their love and support during a particularly hard year. Lastly, I would like to thank my supervisor Jonathan Fay, for his enthusiastic support and giving me context and confidence to keep going when I felt lost in the fog. 1 Chapter One: Introduction In this chapter, I aim to discuss how my research topic initially became evoked in me, my process for finding a research question, the context of my study, my key point of concern, the aim and scope of the study, the significance of the study and lastly how my initial research pointed towards a good match between my experience and the literature. My topic began through noticing strong resentment, anger and a feeling of powerlessness that led