Personal Therapy: A Comprehensive Guide for Therapists, Counsellors and Counselling Psychologists

🌱 Have You Quietly Wondered If You, Too, Might Need Support?

If that question has stirred within you, you’ve come to the right place.

This guide is written for therapists, counsellors, counselling psychologists, and students in training—anyone supporting others through emotional, psychological, and relational landscapes. Whether you're newly considering the therapeutic field or have years of experience, this article explores the pivotal role that personal therapy plays in our professional development and emotional well-being.

👉 If you're new to this topic, read the introductory article: What is Personal Therapy: For Therapy, Counselling and Psychology Professionals Only.

💡Why Is Personal Therapy Essential for a Therapist’s Growth?

Personal therapy isn’t just about “getting support”—it’s a vital professional and ethical resource. Here’s why it matters:

1. Deepening Insight Into the Therapeutic Process

Engaging in personal therapy allows therapists to experience the client role firsthand. This cultivates a more embodied understanding of the therapeutic relationship, especially the nuances of trust, vulnerability, and emotional risk-taking. Therapists learn to navigate their own inner world with care—enhancing the way we hold space for others.

2. Cultivating Self-Awareness and Emotional Regulation

Therapy fosters a grounded self-awareness that supports emotional regulation. This is critical for maintaining a clear, attuned stance with clients—particularly in moments when we’re triggered or emotionally activated.

3. Managing Countertransference

Personal therapy provides a reflective space to explore emotional reactions that may emerge in client work. By processing countertransference in our own therapy, we’re better able to maintain clarity and compassionate boundaries.

4. Preventing Burnout

The work we do is deeply human—and often emotionally heavy. Personal therapy offers therapists a place to offload, reflect, and receive care. It serves as a buffer against burnout, allow us to restore balance, which is crucial for long-term sustainability.

5. Expanding Empathy and Compassion

When we face our own pain and complexities with honesty, our capacity to sit with discomfort—our own and others'—grows stronger. We build the emotional muscle to sit with others more deeply and empathically.

📚 Personal Therapy During Training: A Developmental Milestone

In many accredited training programs, personal therapy is a required component—and for good reason. It’s not only about ‘fixing’ the trainee, but rather about building a foundation for ethical, emotionally intelligent practice.

During training, personal therapy helps you:

• Process the emotional impact of clinical work

• Develop strong habits of self-reflection and emotional insight

• Experience therapy from the client’s perspective

• Explore early experiences of countertransference and therapeutic identity

Engaging in therapy early on fosters a more authentic and resilient professional identity. Trainees who engage meaningfully in therapy tend to develop greater confidence, depth, and clinical maturity.

Core developmental functions of personal therapy include:

• Clinical Competence: Developing emotional insight (awareness of the own emotional and psychological states) enhances therapeutic effectiveness.

• Ethical Clarity: Personal work reduces the risk of unconscious projections interfering with client care. Therapists can separate their personal issues from their professional work, which maintains high ethical standards in practice.

• Emotional Resilience: Therapy builds emotional capacity for the demands of client work; it strengthens our capacity to engage, hold, and restore after challenging sessions.

• Professional Responsibility: Engaging in therapy signals integrity and commitment to ethical practice.

🎓 Personal Therapy as a Requirement for Accreditation

Personal therapy is often a formal requirement in counsellor, therapist/psychotherapist and counselling psychologist (doctorate) trainings. These trainings are governed by accrediting bodies including:

• British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)

• Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)

• American Psychological Association (APA)

These organizations mandate personal therapy hours during training because they recognise that emotional maturity, self-awareness, and ethical practice are considered essential competencies.

🌿 Continuing Therapy Post-Qualification: Why It Still Matters

Personal therapy doesn’t lose relevance after qualification—in fact, many experienced therapists return to therapy throughout different phases of their careers.

Why continue personal therapy post-qualification?

• Ongoing Professional Development: As client work evolves, so do we. Therapy supports us as we evolve with new roles, client groups, or life transitions.

• Burnout & Compassion Fatigue Prevention: The emotional demands of therapy can take a toll over time. Personal therapy is a safe space to process these stresses, regroup, restore, and return to the work with renewed energy.

• Ethical Self-Check: Personal therapy encourages us to stay alert to our own biases and remain client-centered.

• Enhancing Career Longevity: Therapists who engage in regular self-care, including personal therapy, often report greater satisfaction, sustained passion/enthusiasm, and reduced risk of emotional depletion.

Some accrediting bodies even recommend or require continued engagement in personal therapy for re-registration or CPD. Please check your accreditation guidelines.

🌀 What If I’m Hesitant About Entering Personal Therapy?

It’s completely normal for therapists to carry some ambivalence.

“Does this mean I’m not resilient enough?” “Will I be judged by a colleague/line manager?” “Shouldn’t I already have the tools to manage this on my own - especially I am already qualified!”

These questions are common. And yet, it’s often the therapists who ask these questions most deeply who find therapy transformative. Entering your own therapeutic space is not a sign of failure—it’s a courageous act of integrity.

🧠 Common Themes Therapists Explore in Personal Therapy

• Self-Awareness: Personal therapy fosters self-awareness, which enhances a therapist's ability to understand their personal beliefs, values and relational patterns; also to reduce the own biases, emotional triggers and reactivity.

• Empathy and Compassion: When therapists engage with their own vulnerability, they often become more capable of holding complexity in others.

• Countertransference: Understanding what is “ours” vs. what belongs to the client allows for clearer boundaries and therapeutic presence.

• Burnout Prevention & Sustainability: Engaging in personal therapy provides a safe space for therapists to process emotional fatigue and rediscovering passion for the work.

“In my own therapy, I began to unpack the internalised judgment I had carried around my ADHD. Before working with my personal therapist, I hadn’t connected how my procrastination and avoidant behaviours at work were rooted in unprocessed shame and underlying anxiety. Naming that—giving it space—was quite transformational. Something softened. I began approaching those challenges with more understanding, more peace… and far less defensiveness.”

🧩 Diversity, Identity & the Role of Personal Therapy in Culturally Responsive Practice

For therapists with marginalised or intersectional identities, connecting deeply with personal therapy can be such a powerful space to:

• Explore internalised oppression or cultural dissonance

• Navigate the emotional impact of working in systems that may not reflect your lived experience

• Process microaggressions and code-switching fatigue

• Deepen awareness of identity in clinical relationships

Therapy can become a deeply liberating and validating space when cultural safety and sensitivity are held with care.

💬 Personal Therapy with Dr Tiffany Leung

As a practitioner, my style is:

🌿 Warm, reflective, and emotionally attuned

I hold space gently, yet with intention—centering emotional depth and inner wisdom.

📚 Educational yet accessible

Therapy is a space of learning and unlearning—grounded in psychological insight and human connection.

🌏 Culturally sensitive and growth-oriented

I support individuals navigating layered identities, transitions, and multicultural realities with curiosity and compassion.

“If you’re wondering whether personal therapy might be your next step, you’re not alone. Many of the therapists I work with begin with a quiet sense of curiosity—or fatigue—and find it meaningful to have a space just for themselves. I welcome those conversations with care and confidentiality.”

Some of the focus areas I support:

• Emotional wellbeing for therapists and helping professionals

• Identity exploration: race, neurodiversity, gender, class, religion, and more

• Overcoming Emotional exhaustion, and Exclusion, Marginalization and Bullying

• Building Intercultural competence & emotional resilience (e.g. living or working abroad)

• Cultural adjustment, loss, and identity shifts

🖋️ About the Author: Dr Tiffany Leung

Dr Tiffany Leung is a UK-accredited Chartered Psychologist, Coach, and Clinical Supervisor. Her work centres on emotional depth, cultural identity, and reflective practice. Tiffany is a strong advocate of personal therapy and has engaged in her own therapeutic work for many years—a commitment that continues to shape her clinical presence and compassion.

She supports therapists, international professionals, and individuals navigating the emotional complexities of multicultural identities, migration, and professional caregiving. Her practice is grounded in psychological insight, cultural sensitivity, and a deep respect for each person's inner world.

🌐 Learn more about Tiffany

📩 Contact Tiffany here

📖 Readings on Personal Therapy for Therapists, Counsellors and Counselling Psychologists

Several studies and key readings highlight the importance of personal therapy for practitioners. These include:

1. "The Therapist's Own Psychotherapy: A Guide for Practitioners" by David G. Benner

2. "On Being a Therapist" by Jeffrey A. Kottler

3. "Burnout in Mental Health Professionals: A Review of Literature" (Journal of Mental Health Counseling)

4. "Therapist Vulnerability: The Role of Self-Disclosure and Countertransference in the Therapeutic Process" (Journal of Counseling Psychology)

These texts provide research, case studies, and theoretical frameworks that underscore the value of personal therapy, for long-term, sustainable practice.