The school of life : exploring the relationship between family therapists’ own parenting experience and their clinical practice

Abstract

The study explores the relationship between family therapists’ parenting experiences and their clinical practice. The parenting experiences in this study refer to the therapists’ experience of being parented and of being parents to their children. An online interview using Skype was conducted with each of the six Norwegian family therapists recruited through a purposeful sample for this study. Social constructionism, attachment theory and the map of relational resonance supported the interpretation of the findings of this interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study. The analysis led to six superordinate themes that highlight how family therapists perceived their parenting experiences to be connected to their therapeutic work. The emergent themes outlined how parenting experiences have contributed to the participants’ choice of profession and gave rise to resources that are continuously used in clinical practice. Participants also revealed the positive influence that the experience of parenting their own children has on their therapeutic work. The challenges therapists experience when families in practice resonate with their own personal stories were also portrayed in the outcomes. Furthermore, findings indicated the reciprocal relationship between therapeutic work and personal development of family therapists. The resulting outcomes gave rise to recommendations for future research. Implications for practice, supervision and training in systemic psychotherapy were also presented.