Sep 19

Navigating the Liminal: On Becoming a Psychotherapist

Psychotherapy is the shaping of fire into light. Each encounter asks us to transform darkness — uncertainty, trauma, and fear — into understanding and presence. For me, this journey began not in a classroom but in a nightmare: a dream of being buried alive. It propelled me into personal therapy, and ultimately, toward becoming a psychotherapist.

That early encounter with the unconscious revealed a profound truth: theory alone cannot illuminate the depths of human experience. Empathy and authenticity (Rogers, 1961) are choices enacted in the tension between self-protection and presence. Transactional scripts and relational patterns (Berne, 1964; Karpman, 1968) operate as living hypotheses, revealed and refined through real-time relational engagement. Gestalt’s unfinished business (Perls, 1969) surfaces in silences and gestures demanding acknowledgment. Trauma is embodied (Shapiro, 2001), relational dynamics are fluid (Gottman & Silver, 1999), and the therapeutic alliance is never guaranteed (Clarkson, 1995).

Now, as a lecturer, I invite students into this liminal terrain. Theory becomes a lens, not a certainty. Together, we explore where our own histories intersect with the work, how transference shapes understanding, and how safety is cultivated for both client and practitioner. Teaching, like therapy, is dialogical: in guiding others, I am continually illuminated, challenged, and transformed — and feel truly privileged.

It is here, in this confrontation with reality, that the “killing” begins — subtle, psychological, often unconscious. We start to mould, correct, and reshape, attempting to bring the other back into alignment with our projection. In this process, we extinguish spontaneity, difference, and authenticity — the very qualities that first animated desire.

Psychotherapy — and teaching it — is the shaping of fire into light: within clients, within ourselves, and within the classroom. How might we, together, turn darkness into insight?