What To Do After Supervision and Getting Independently Licensed As A Therapist
Lifelong Learning, Unlearning & Relearning
Continuing to engage in professional consultation with a consultation, peers, or colleagues
If we do not continually engage in lifelong learning, we are prone to overestimating our abilities and/or underestimating our abilities
Under estimation of our abilities as therapist is common and is actually helpful in small doses to avoid over estimating our competence in an area we lack skill and training in
To reach our full potential of being an exceptional or extraordinary therapist, we must work at it, receive ongoing support, and skills must be cultivated and practiced with others (e.g. receiving ongoing consultation or supervision from a trusted advisor)
Continually exploring our own implicit biases and areas of growth
Look up and read more on: Johari’s Window
Reading books and articles
Listening to podcasts
Watching videos
Attending our own personal therapy
Engaging in continual self & community care as we are the vessels for change
Meeting up with other professionals to network, learn more about them, build community, and feel more connected
And more
Increased Confidence
With increased training, learning, time, practice, effort, repetition, reflection, awareness, you will feel more confident in yourself and your work.
Increased confidence possible and is part of the developmental process.
This could show up as: less impostor syndrome (increased confidence), less questioning in your abilities (increased sense of affirmation), less focus on the client during peer or professional consultation (more focus on your own reactions and feelings), less worry about “messing up the client” because of lack of training and skill (increased ability to understand your areas of strength and continued areas of growth),
In this phase, you will integrate the science/evidence base as well as the art/style of therapy. Instead of adhering to a modality in a rigid or strict manner, you will learn more to trust in your intuition, develop a style of therapy, and know when to intervene with a skill or question.
Refining Our Theoretical Orientation & Approach To Change
Spend more time, money, and effort into learning 1-2 modalities in depth.
This can mean: enrolling in a substantial workshop/training/seminar along with continued consultation hours
When you attend a training or workshop, you will learn something about yourself, your work, your clients. Or you may realize you are already doing something the training is teaching and this will affirm and reaffirm your confidence and trust in yourself as a clinician. You will meet other therapists, build community and feel less alone.
Essentially, you will be given new insight and perspective. This is the power of attending an effective and compelling workshop or training.
Professional Identity, Personal Balance & Career Aspirations
Your identity as a therapist is who you are as a person.
Eventually, the bridge between professional and personal will be less divided and merge. Essentially, you will become more congruent. You may be more comfortable showing up as you are in session. Alternatively, you may learn to psychoanalyze less in your personal life and just be a human being vs. a therapist.
Developing your identity as a therapist requires working on yourself, reflecting on your values, engaging in values oriented work, engaging in hobbies, discovering more parts of yourself, experimenting and trying new things out, and more.
Eventually, you might want to supervisee early career associate therapists, passing along the knowledge and wisdom you’ve learned for the past 4-7 years to the next generation of therapists
Or perhaps you want to expand out of 1-1 therapy and become an adjunct lecturer and teach at your alma mater. Or perhaps you’d like to present workshops and presentations to local agencies or corporations.
You might want to change the way you practice such as incorporating a new modality or approach.