No description available.

This preface is designed to provide insight for the reader into the reasoning behind choosing these specific pieces of work to make up the doctorate portfolio and why I consider them to be important pieces, contributing to my identity and competence as a counselling psychologist. This doctorate portfolio is comprised of a selection of completed work for the Practitioner Doctorate in Counselling Psychology for The University of Wolverhampton. It contains three dossiers: Academic, therapeutic and research. In a seperate document is a confidential attachment, which is separate to this portfolio as it contains confidential information. The Academic Dossier contains essays that were submitted for the modules 'Life-span Approach' and 'Working with Couples'. Received academic feedback for these essays are provided within the confidential attachment. The Therapeutic Dossier contains two essays that were written at the last stages of the three year doctorate course, reflecting upon my perceived professional development in the 'Professional Issues' essay and an exploration of therapeutic experience on supervised placements in 'Supervised Practice', over the last three academic years. A conscious decision was also made to not edit these essays for entering into the doctorate portfolio, as they can then ideally represent a growth in writing style and academic ability, which has occurred over the course of this doctoral training. Finally the Research Dossier is composed of several chapters, including a literature review, empirical study and critical appraisal.

Please read the abstract in the 00front part of this document Copyright 1996, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Basson, LM 1996, A phenomenological study of therapist self-disclosure, DPhil thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-01242007-134730/ > / Thesis (DPhil (Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Psychology / unrestricted

The present diploma thesis deals with the self-disclosure of the psychotherapist during therapy. The theoretical section summarizes the present state of literature on the subject and current knowledge of the concept of self-disclosure. In order to grasp the topic more comprehensively, self-disclosure is viewed in the broader framework of psychotherapy. Furthermore, the thesis presents various ways of defining self-disclosure, dealing with the content and frequency of self-disclosure, the reasons for its use, as well as its risks and ethical aspects. The theoretical section is concluded with an overview of the concept of self-disclosure in terms of various therapeutic approaches. The empirical part of the thesis deals with the possibilities of dealing with the psychotherapist's self-disclosure during therapy. The qualitative research focuses on the ways in which psychotherapists use self-disclosure in their practice and on their experiences with this intervention. The data based on semi-structured interviews with nine psychotherapists are processed by the method of thematic analysis. The interviews' analysis results in the following main topics that are related to the treatment of psychotherapist self-disclosure during therapy: various types of self-disclosure; the psychotherapist's presetting for...