Autoethnographic Reflections on 30 Years of Teaching Psychodynamic Psychotherapy to Students in Professional Psychology Training

Abstract

Teaching university postgraduate students has been a lifelong fulfilling career. Drawing on theoretical frames from autoethnography, the aim of this paper is to share my autoethnographic reflections on 30 years of teaching psychodynamic psychotherapy to senior postgraduate students in professional psychology training. Far from being an indulgent trip down memory lane, sharing my teaching experiences has the intention to offer value in terms of documenting the socio-cultural and historical changes that took place during this period, and in so doing, to offer educators a personal understanding of the impact of such developments on teaching. Three key areas of change have been identified. These are in classroom demography, curriculum, and technology. Using these key areas of change as themes that traverse the time periods of my teaching, I write about my development of a sense of identity as a lecturer and also about three main lessons learned along the way. The first lesson is the power of experiential learning; the second lesson is teaching students about empathy, a core concept in psychotherapy; and the third lesson is the power of personal growth and awareness of self. It is suggested that these lessons have implications for pedagogy.