About Psychology
People ask me more and more often:
— “When are you finally going to start practicing psychotherapy?!”
“Understand, my friend: I am no doctor for you; I am ill too,
But you can book an appointment alongside me.” 😄🔵
— In the meantime, we are all struggling together. 🪡
“We must not overlook the fact that false neurotic paths become ingrained habits and that, despite every insight, they do not disappear until replaced by other habits that can be acquired only through training. The patient must, in the fullest sense of the word, be ‘guided’ onto other paths, and this is possible only if the patient has a corresponding desire of their own.”
(C. G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, p. 25) 📚
Knowledge is of course necessary here—the different approaches to psychotherapy—but it is only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath it stands the therapist’s personality:
- Their faith in another person’s capacity to overcome difficulty;
- Their ability to understand and see the world through the other person’s eyes;
- Their unconditional acceptance;
- Their love for a person as a unique, unrepeatable being who has been given this one and only life.
🪇 These are not tools;
✳ they are the deepest convictions.
I am on the path toward therapy. Alongside years of training, personal qualities, attitudes, and character matter enormously—and they form gradually. ♾
Among everything else, a psychotherapist should embody exceptional qualities of soul. 💙©
Questions about this article
01Why does a psychotherapist’s personality matter as much as professional methods?
Methods provide ways of working, but their use rests on durable beliefs: faith in a person’s capacity to overcome difficulty, empathy, unconditional acceptance, and respect for the uniqueness of one life.
02Which qualities of a future therapist does the author emphasize?
Seeing the world through the other person’s eyes, believing in their ability, accepting them without conditions, and loving the person as a unique being. These are convictions that develop gradually, not tools.
03Why is understanding neurotic habits alone insufficient?
In Jung’s quoted passage, insight does not by itself replace an established path. New behavior requires learning and the person’s own desire to move toward other ways of living and acting.