Therapeutic 'Use of Self': Reflexivity, Self-Awareness & Role-Playing

This essay explores the concept of 'use of self' in therapy, particularly within humanistic and relational approaches, emphasizing the therapist's use of their own feelings, personality, and experiences to enhance the therapeutic process. It highlights the importance of reflexivity and self-awareness for therapists to ethically serve clients, noting that unrecognized patterns can be detrimental. Through self-reflection and role-playing, the author identifies personal biases and strengths, such as empathy and compassion, which influence the therapeutic relationship. The essay concludes that developing self-awareness through these methods is crucial for fostering trust and achieving positive client outcomes. Desklib provides a platform for students to access this and many other solved assignments.

Running head: USE OF SELF
USE OF SELF
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
USE OF SELF
The concept of the therapeutic of self can be found to be quite prevalent both in the
humanistic as well as in the relational approaches towards counseling and psychotherapy. The
term “use of self” is mainly found to refer specifically to the different types of ways in which a
therapist can draw upon his own feelings, personality as well as experiences so that they can
enhance the therapeutic process. One of the famous study conducted by Wokset (2016) states
that “Use of self involves the operationalisation of personal characteristics so that they impact on
the client in such a way as to become potentially significant determinants of the therapeutic
process.” I have learnt that in order to work in an ethical manner and in the best interests for the
clients, the therapist use of self needs to be employed thoughtfully as well as with the therapeutic
intent. It is important for the therapist to be not only reflective but also reflexive in their
approach (Strong et al., 2015). I believe that in order to use ourselves in the therapeutic
relationship, I need to develop and thereby nurture my attributes of self-awareness. I have come
to understand that if our responses and the patterns remain outside the domain of our awareness,
we would not be able to reflect on how they might be detrimental or useful in the different
therapeutic process established with the clients. I have realized that many of our feelings as well
as experiences happen to be outside our conscious awareness. I have understood that with the
process of self-reflection, I would be able to identify the previously unacknowledged thoughts
and feelings to my awareness. This would help me to be able to realize my personal attributes
that can hinder or promote the therapeutic relationship with the client ultimately helping the
client to feel empowered and encouraged without feeling judged (Stuck et al., 2015).
Role-playing can be explained as a form of game where the participants assume the role
of specific characters and participate in stories with each of them bound to play their specific
roles of the characters as done in real life scenarios (Bhargava & Sriram, 2016). While

2
USE OF SELF
participating in such scenarios of interacting with patients in the role-play, I came to understand
the specific strengths and weakness of myself which could promote or hinder rapport
development between clients and me. One of the most important attribute of counseling that I
lacked is my cultural biasness and judgmental attitude. The “use of self” helped me realize that
although in my conscious mind, I used to think that I am culturally competent and accept all
cultural tradiational equally, but while participating in the role play as well as from the feedback
obtained from professor after role-play, I realized that I often made cultural remarks and
judgments that could affect client’s dignity and autonomy if not developed worked upon. Hence,
the role-play helped me in realizing the barriers that could have affected my service to my client.
However, I realized that empathy and compassion is those person characteristics derived from
“the use of self” which would help me developing an emotional bond with the client. This would
help the client to develop trust on me in the therapeutic process enabling him to reveal all crucial
information and this would help me to provide services resulting in better client outcomes
(Froggett et al., 2015). In this ways, I believe that my sense of self is developing through role-
plays.

3
USE OF SELF
References:
Bhargava, S. & Sriram, S., (2016). Counsellor characteristics and the counselling experience.
In Counselling in India (pp. 13-33). Springer, Singapore.
Froggett, L., Ramvi, E. & Davies, L., (2015). Thinking from experience in psychosocial practice:
reclaiming and teaching ‘use of self’. Journal of Social Work Practice, 29(2), pp.133-
150.
Strong, T., Ross, K.H. & Sesma-Vazquez, M., (2015). Counselling the (self?) diagnosed client:
Generative and reflective conversations. British Journal of Guidance &
Counselling, 43(5), pp.598-610.
Stuck, A.E., Moser, A., Morf, U., Wirz, U., Wyser, J., Gillmann, G., Born, S., Zwahlen, M.,
Iliffe, S., Harari, D. & Swift, C., (2015). Effect of health risk assessment and counselling
on health behaviour and survival in older people: a pragmatic randomised trial. PLoS
medicine, 12(10), p.e1001889.
Wosket, V. (2016). The therapeutic use of self: Counselling practice, research and supervision.
Routledge.