Originally Posted by
Stellata
Which is why I firmly believe in the value of personal psychotherapy or counselling for participants on any mental health based training.
I think that would be a good idea.
Maybe not as in depth as on psychotherapy training unless the student wants to or needs to, but being 'on the other side' and also watching others practice, and having a good reflective ability is vital really. On psychotherapy training there are also intense personal development/training therapy groups, which can be very confrontational, and fast-track to facing and working with deeply rooted issues.
I'm studying a 3 year degree in mental health nursing, and am currently nearing the end of my 2nd year. So far, we've covered different reflective models of practice and are encouraged to reflect whilst on placement. And as far as I know, the psychotherapy training tends to be longer in duration (minimum 5 years?), so the kind of training that you're advocating probably wouldn't be as intense if it were to be adopted within mental health nursing.
I'd be interested in hearing how you're trained to 'guard .against' transferring your issues onto clients
As with the models of reflection, the subject of transference is only really dealt with on a theoretical basis. We only really skim the surface in class, and it's down to the individual student to self-monitor whilst out in practice, (usually through continually reflecting on their practice).