The psychotherapy of psychotherapists

This article introduces a special issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session that provides 6 psychologists' narrative accounts of their own personal therapies and a practice-friendly research review on the characteristics of therapist-patients and their own treatment experiences. In response to a standard set of questions, highly experienced psychotherapists hailing from diverse theoretical commitments wrote the accounts. Their accounts illuminate subtle nuances of the therapeutic relationship and treatment outcome, perhaps more fully than other sources of data. Much of value can be learned from these essays and the research findings about the linkages between receiving and conducting psychotherapy and about the technical and emotional challenges that arise when treating a patient who shares the same profession.