188 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 2 Table 3 Themes and Subthemes Themes Subthemes Theme 1: Presenting concerns Subtheme 1a: Mental health Subtheme 2a: Life transitions Theme 2: Therapist attributes Subtheme 2a: Practicality Subtheme 2b: Quality Theme 3: Intrapersonal growth Subtheme 3a: Cognitive Subtheme 3b: Emotional Theme 4: Interpersonal growth Subtheme 4a: Personal Subtheme 4b: Professional Theme 5: Therapeutic factors Subtheme 5a: Nurturing Subtheme 5b: Normalization Subtheme 5c: Vulnerability Subtheme 5d: Transference Theme 6: Challenges Subtheme 6a: Finances Subtheme 6b: Stigma Subtheme 6c: Role adjustment Theme 1: Presenting Concerns Presenting concerns included participants’ thoughts and feelings prior to engaging in personal therapy. Participants shared their decision-making processes and motivations leading to the initiation of personal therapy. Participants described two subthemes that captured their motivation to engage: mental health concerns and life transitions. Mental health concerns represented grief, trauma, anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation, and relational stressors. For example, Michelle shared: I would say those were the times when it was like I was pulled to my end, and so the depression, it was like I needed something else more than just the regular support from family and friends and then the miscarriages. It was like I felt so isolated, and then with my dad dying it was like I, gosh, this is . . . it was like both of them dying so close together. Participants also described life transitions that served as motivation to engage in personal therapy, such as changes in relationships, careers, and living arrangements. As Lynn represented, some of that was related to like, as a result of the divorce. I’ve moved three times in the past, like sold a house and moved out of it or kind of moved into storage while in that house in order to be able to stage it and sell it. Then out of the house into an apartment, out the apartment into a rent house. And so there’s been a lot of upheaval for me and for my child. Presenting concerns may also be interactional in nature. For some participants (n = 10), life transitions overlapped with their mental health concerns, such as a career change triggering anxiety. However, the remaining three participants cited either mental health concerns or life transitions as a reason for initiating personal therapy. All participants differentiated their experience of internal mental health distress and external life stressors.
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