Reactions Your feedback on Therapy Today articles
We very much welcome your letters – the maximum word count is 350 and letters may need to be edited. NB these pages are dedicated to responses to recent Therapy Today articles only.
Full time and loving it In response to Sally Brown’s article on portfolio working (‘Portfolio working: the future of private practice?’, Therapy Today , March 2024), I want to give a ‘shout out’ to all those counsellors and supervisors who are working full time in private practice and loving it. Portfolio working is great for some but it doesn’t work for us all. Until last year I had been
aligned to my values. It fed into my client work thanks to the life experience it gave me and the personal growth that went with it. The variety in my working week was essential to my own mental health. Everyone is di ff erent, but personally I think that I would not be able to provide the same quality of care and attention to my clients as I do now if I were to practise every day. Reading about other practitioners who also acknowledge this has helped to validate my choices. However, on a less positive note, thanks to SCoPEd, I also feel penalised for those same choices. By not pursuing a traditional therapy career path with its attendant academic milestones, it seems that I have unwittingly positioned myself at a disadvantage. The satisfaction a ff orded by my various activities, the immeasurable learning gained through CPD, from colleagues and supervisors, and from the richness of my client work itself, made further study seem optional, not essential. Now, sadly, it is becoming a Thanks for the article ‘Portfolio working: the future of private practice?’ ( Therapy Today , March 2024). I too was seeing up to 25 or more clients a week, but that didn’t last long as burnout was in the air with such levels. After that I reduced the numbers and later looked at coaching as an option. But my passion for chess gradually took over and now I am a part-time chess coach in one school (three schools was too much!) and see children privately as well. I still see psychotherapy/ counselling as my main profession (I get paid more per hour) but am now down to about 10-12 hours a week. Portfolio working seems to be the way forward for me. Nigel Moyse MBACP (Accred) I’ve been fortunate to have enough clients since I started out in private practice. However, I recognised last year that I was missing the additional psychoeducation work I did at Rape Crisis in a voluntary capacity, and at The Listening Centre, an a ff ordable prerequisite to professional status. Fiona Morrison MBACP (Accred)
LETTER OF THE MONTH
counselling in private practice part time while holding down various counselling teaching projects. I loved teaching but the increased administration involved was sucking up energy I wanted to use in my client work. I’ve stepped back on teaching and now work full time as a counsellor and supervisor. At last I have more fuel in the tank for my clients and supervisees, I have time to engage in research that applies directly to my clients, which informs my work with them, and I have more time for a life outside of therapy. One of the contributors in the article comments, ‘If your whole identity is about being a therapist you will resent it’ and also ‘I wouldn’t want a therapist who didn’t have a life outside therapy’, but since working full time as a counsellor and supervisor in private practice I have more time to embrace my full, vibrant and stimulating life outside the therapy room. The contributor’s comments hit a raw nerve because this month I am renewing my membership whereby I shall lose my senior accredited status. After many sacrifices and hard work to achieve two Level 7 qualifications, a huge piece of work to gain my senior accreditation, and 10 years’ experience of working in services and private practice this feels unjust. I won’t take up the offer to engage in another hoop to jump through, once again, to prove myself to keep hold of my senior accredited status. I know I have skills, knowledge and expertise; my clients know it because they experience it in the room, and I witness their transformation. However, it saddens me that I feel increasingly part of an organisation that devalues the work I do and undermines the contribution I make to the field. Comments in this article made me feel the same. So, to all those who are quietly getting on with simply doing the amazing work of therapy, and no doubt have an identity and a life outside of it – I see you and I salute you! Michelle Higgins , counsellor and supervisor in full-time private practice
Portfolio working Thank you for your article on portfolio working ( Therapy Today , March 2024). It was comforting to see my own experience re fl ected in it. I wonder if any other portfolio workers have felt a slight sense of guilt at not devoting themselves exclusively to a career as a therapist? I know I have. And yet
this article gives a strong rationale for making that choice. I already had a freelance career when I quali fi ed more than 20 years ago and launched my private practice. I assumed that I would give it up eventually and transition to being a full-time therapist but that just never happened. My freelance work was always interesting, challenging and increasingly
12 THERAPY TODAY MAY 2024
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