Becoming a Therapist: A Workbook for Personal Exploration

The therapist is a powerful variable in guiding people who are emotionally troubled and in facilitating human change. To achieve positive outcomes for clients, it is important for counselors and therapists to have the ability to create an emotionally safe place for clients to explore problems. An important element in achieving these goals is for counselors and therapists to be aware of and comfortable with their own worldview and be able to accept the worldview of others. Included in this much-needed, interactive workbook are thirty-three classroom-tested activities containing probing questions that help to raise users’ awareness of their personal values, views of real-life experiences, and ways to approach problem solving. The author’s goal is to engage the user (a prospective counselor or an experienced practitioner) in a nonthreatening personal self-exploration rather than to espouse a specific theoretical orientation or to seek “right” answers. The thought-provoking “explorations” will increase users’ understanding of their own feelings about and reactions to the diverse issues they will address as counselors or therapists.