What makes us competent therapists? And why it is important how we go about it: A discussion of Mustafa Çevrim’s “The vulture in the room”

ABSTRACT

Discussing Mustafa Çevrim’s clinical paper, this article focuses on what it means to feel competent in the treatment room. The felt questioning of our competence or perceived rejection of our therapeutic efforts often activates our trailing edge. It is therefore essential that therapists also reflect on their experiences in an intersubjective context. In addition, therapeutic competencies must be acquired in a process that closely links theory and practice. The article uses Mustafa’s case to examine which abilities and skills are of central importance for progress in treatment from the perspective of intersubjective Self Psychology.

KEYWORDS:

• Empathic responsiveness
• intersubjectivity
• selfobject needs
• trailing and leading edge
• twinship/alter-ego experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ The importance of the question of what skills we need to acquire as psychoanalysts and how we acquire them was further stimulated by an article by Zwiebel (2020) on the question of when a psychoanalyst is sufficiently well analyzed, which he answers by looking at the basic competencies required for our analytic work.

² Furthermore, the current anti-feminist positions of right-wing political parties and anti-gender movements show that the progress made is not guaranteed for all time. In Turkey, we are currently seeing a rollback with the ban on Women’s Day and Pride Marches, the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, attacks on LGBTQ+ communities, and a family policy in line with neo-conservative principles. Kandiyoti (2023) speaks of “masculinist restauration”. Attempts at backsliding can also be observed in Austria (see Sauer & Penz, 2023).

³ My translation: Ihr Selbst wurde einfach durch die Gegenwart von jemandem gestützt, den sie als ihr selbst genügend ähnlich kannte, um sie zu verstehen und von ihr verstanden zu werden.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Petra Purkarthofer

Petra Purkarthofer is a trained psychoanalyst and a member of the Vienna Circle for Psychoanalysis and Self-Psychology (VSPSP). In 2022, she was awarded the ECP Scholarship and is currently a member of the International Council of the IAPSP. She works as a psychotherapist in private practice and as a lecturer in political science and international development at the University of Vienna.