The 10 key skills to be a professional therapist

Knowledge and practical experience are very necessary aspects to adequately perform the profession of psychologist. They have a great weight, but this does not mean that they are the only thing that psychotherapists need to adequately perform therapy.

There are several key aspects to becoming a good clinical psychologist, going from the most obvious such as empathy or having good active listening, going through the rest to the code of ethics and, also, having good regulation emotional.

These and many more are the keys to being a professional psychotherapist that we are going to discover next.

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What are the keys to practicing professionally as a therapist?

A positive relationship between the therapist and the patient is a predictor of the success of therapy, as well as being a requirement to be a good psychotherapist. The more positive this relationship is, the more confident the client will be to explain in the greatest degree of detail their problems, in addition to being more favorable to exploring them and introducing new strategies in your life to deal with them.

The knowledge and experiences of the professional are crucial aspects for the good performance of a therapeutic process, but it is also It is essential that he has well developed certain therapeutic skills such as empathy, active listening or intelligence emotional. Patient and therapist should experience a team feeling, establishing a positive bond and commitment towards the achievement of therapeutic goals, a commitment in which the skills of the professional exert an important influence.

But the fact that a positive relationship is necessary does not mean that it should be like the one we have with friends or family. The relationship in therapy must be doubly asymmetric.

On the one hand, it is asymmetric emotionally, since it is the patient's problems that should take center stage, not ours as psychologists, while on the other hand It is asymmetric in that we are the psychotherapists who have the professional knowledge to help the patient to improve her quality of life and mental health.

Added to this, formal rules of operation, of the space, of the duration and frequency of the sessions and the commitment that the patient will actively collaborate with the professional to help themselves to address their problems.

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Skills and requirements to be a professional psychotherapist

Do you want to know what it takes to be a good psychologist? There are many aspects to take into account when doing psychotherapy so that the therapeutic process is as effective and fluid as possible. However, all of them can be grouped into the following points.

1. Mental flexibility

Psychologists meet many different people, each with their own opinions, views, and beliefs, ideas that can be as varied as they are shocking.

For this reason, in order to adequately exercise psychotherapy, it is necessary free yourself from prejudices, stereotypes, beliefs and preconceptions in addition to applying unconditional acceptance of what the patient thinks. It does not mean that we have the same opinion as our patients, but it does mean that we must be open to the different and unknown.

To reach such a degree of tolerance it is necessary that as professionals we have dared to leave our comfort zone. We all have these types of metaphorical "zones", made up of habits, customs and routines that give us security and comfort. In the particular case of psychologists, it implies daring to put aside our beliefs and points of view to conform to the patient and make them trust us.

Every psychologist must put into practice the art of questioning, discovering, investigating and assimilating what surrounds us, as it can serve as a true source of inspiration.

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2. Empathy

It is essential in the clinical practice of every psychologist that he or she knows how to put himself in the shoes of his patients. The psychotherapist must have the mental mechanisms and strategies necessary to understand what they are. the patient's particular fears, needs, and circumstances that have made him or her feel the way current. Only by reaching this understanding of the emotional state of the patient, the psychologist will be able to approach the case.

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3. Introspection

Introspection is another necessary key for any good psychologist who appreciates himself.. It is a complicated task, but very beneficial for our clinical practice. We cannot understand our patients without first having performed a self-observation exercise, analyzing and understanding ourselves.

It may seem that this is simple, but it requires deep reflection and discovering our strengths and weaknesses in order to grow as people and correctly apply psychotherapy.

Only by knowing ourselves well will we achieve better management and control of the mental states of others.

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4. Authenticity and respect

With authenticity and respect, we mean that you must be personally coherent, avoid defensive responses and show empathetic attention and responses, in other words, be with the patient. It is essential to pay attention to the qualities and resources that the client has used to manage their discomfort on their own before going to psychotherapy.

As professionals, we can allow ourselves to do some self-disclosure from time to time, giving information about ourselves. This should not be too frequent because we should not steal time or prominence from our patient. If personal information is disclosed, it must be released with a dropper and with the clear objective of increasing the collaboration and trust of our patient.

5. Active listening and observation

Active listening is a sine qua non quality for practicing psychotherapy. It does not only imply listening to the patient, but paying deep attention to him, to be aware of everything he tells us without interrupting him other than to ask him the appropriate questions.

Not only will active listening help us to better understand what the patient is experiencing, but it will also better establish the therapist-patient relationship.

Knowing how to listen makes the consultation a relaxed atmosphere. By creating a climate of complicity, the patient will be freer to explain what their problem is, in a calm and sincere way.

The patient should not be interrupted so that he can express himself freely. In this way, he will be able to answer his own rhetorical questions aloud.

It is also important to observe how he tells us things and in what way he behaves gesturally. Silence is not the mere absence of a word, but a pause that can tell us many things. The professional must observe how the patient experiences these pauses, expressing emotions such as nervousness or discomfort through his non-verbal language. Therefore, we must pay attention to the movement of his hands, his posture and his gestures. Everything, absolutely everything, transmits information in one way or another.

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6. Trust and safety

It is essential that as professionals we transmit trust to our clients, making them aware that we will do everything possible to help them, that we are there for them and that with our professional practice our goal is not to harm them in the most minimum.

Confidence is transmitted by feeling it in yourself. In other words, it is necessary for the patient to feel confident in therapy, first of all, the professional shows confidence in their own skills, knowledge and experience. If the therapist's way of speaking does not show a certain air of determination and security with his words, it will hardly be possible to transmit it to those who turn to him in search of his help.

With this we do not mean that it should be excessively technical or show how much we have studied. Showing confidence is not synonymous with being a pedant.

The idea is that, showing the appropriate tact and without being excessively direct, we transmit the guidelines of action in a clear, concise and reliable way. We must avoid being ambiguous, not give contradictory messages, or show ourselves as inferior to our patient or hesitate, behaviors that undoubtedly harm the therapeutic relationship.

7. Be a good communicator

Besides knowing how to listen, it is very important to know how to convey what we want the patient to understand. It is necessary for the psychotherapist to have good communication resources to ensure that the patient understands the objective of the therapy and what tools will be used, making him understand that he will have to take an active role throughout the therapy but under the guidance of the professional.

Becoming a good communicator is possibly one of the biggest challenges psychologists face on a daily basis. The reason for this is that, although we already have many years of experience, it always happens that we must adapt our words to the patient, who will have a certain cultural level. There will be those who find it difficult to understand one concept more than others, and that is why we will be there to make it as easy as possible for you. Good communication skills are essential.

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8. Analytical capacity

It is common for patients to like to talk, a lot. They talk and talk, and they are within their rights, because that is why they have come to psychotherapy. In order to act, it is necessary for the professional to know how to interpret and select what the patient tells him and that is related to her main problem.

Since it is not advisable to cut the flow of the conversation, the analytical and selection capacity of the psychologist is basic. He must stay with what is important, with the information to pull to get to the root of the problem.

We have reached number 8 on our list, but I consider that there are two other aspects that we cannot ignore in the good practice of clinical psychology.

9. Emotional intelligence and self-regulation

This is almost a no-brainer, but it doesn't hurt to mention it. Every therapist must have some emotional intelligence and self-regulation. If you do not have it, you should go to a psychologist before applying therapy because otherwise it is very difficult to do quality psychotherapy.

The emotional intelligence It does not only imply having empathy, but also being able to recognize our own emotional states, knowing how to give them a name and applying tools to manage such emotions.

10. Compliance with ethical and professional requirements

This point is another obvious point, but unfortunately there are not a few psychologists who seem that the code of ethics does not go with them. Although the debate about whether Psychology is a science is intense and we will always find opinions of all kinds, even among colleagues in the profession, What is not debatable is that psychotherapy must be based on empirical evidence and respect ethical and professional requirements.

Among the fundamental requirements to respect are confidentiality, refer to another professional if we are not trained to attend to the case or to treat the patient's problems for whatever reason and to avoid the occurrence of another type of relationship beyond the professional one. Following the code of ethics is not a skill, but an ethical, moral and professional obligation and not we take the slightest risk in stating that a psychologist who does not respect you is not a good psychologist.

Among these requirements is also that of constant training. Psychological treatments are frequently updated, as well as how to diagnose and address disorders. If we want to give the best possible psychotherapies to our patients, it is essential that we be aware of the developments in the field, ensuring that we are up to date and do not use techniques that science has shown to be ineffective.

Do you want to train in psychotherapy?

If you want to train and professionalize yourself in patient care from psychological therapy, you may be interested in the Online Postgraduate Professionalizer In Integrative Psychotherapy organized by Instituto Mensalus.

@professioal (2062724)

This post-university training program lasts 6 months and has both Theoretical-practical classes as well as all kinds of materials and documentation, all in 100% format on-line.