The Therapist as Parent - 2023 Conference

Session Description

Discuss the ethics of disclosing family/parenting status to clients; understand the pros and cons of disclosure.   Examine the biases and assumptions that therapists may make about parenting clients and clients may make about parenting therapists.   Understand best practices for managing potential parental and therapist burnout.     Disclosure of family/parenting status can have positive impacts on therapy; disclosure is often unavoidable as well, especially if a therapist works in a small community or is building their family through pregnancy. We suggest that it is crucial to understand the self-as-parent in the therapeutic relationship; understanding how your own parenting experience impacts your role as therapist is crucial to doing excellent work with families, parenting adults and children. We also suggest that it is crucial to reflect on how one’s beliefs about parenting might impact the therapist-client relationship and how client’s beliefs about us as parents might impact the therapeutic relationship.    Parenting is a deeply embodied and unique human experience; there are aspects of therapy that activate the parenting ‘self.’ Learning to utilize the parenting self in therapy and to use self-disclosure effectively in family therapy can be transformative and increase rapport and help clients feel understood. Clients can, at times, process feelings about their being parenting or their parenting in the light of their therapist being a parent. While caution is warranted, there are undeniable benefits.    Parenting as a therapist also has implications for burnout; both parenting and therapy is a form of care work; care work is historically an under compensated and difficult form of work that is often awash in gendered expectations. Clinicians who are parents must be aware of this, especially in light of the pandemic and increase in working from home. This is also an arena where parenting therapists can potentially support parenting clients and families in unique ways.