A funny thing happened when my scientist self and my practitioner self became an integrated scientist-practitioner: A tale of two couple therapists transformed

Abstract

In this article we provide a conceptual discussion and personal narratives of what it is like to be counseling psychology faculty who have maintained constant involvement in providing psychotherapy throughout our faculty careers. In the context of discussing this special career pathway, we propose a developmental model for the integrated scientist–practitioner, where the dual roles of scientist and therapist are fused into a whole professional self. We utilize emotionally focused couple therapy as an exemplar for what we consider to be a synergistic integration of our roles as graduate level counseling psychology researchers, educators, clinical supervisors and therapists.

Keywords:

• scientist-practitioner
• Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy
• counselor identity
• researcher identity