What Happens When Therapists Feel Bored or Anxious? A Qualitative Study of Distracting Self-Awareness and Therapists' Management Strategies

Using a qualitative methodology, we investigated novice and experienced therapists' experiences of and strategies for managing distracting self-awareness. We found that novice therapists were most aware of anxiety and critical self-talk, whereas experienced therapists were most aware of boredom and outside distracters. In addition, although therapists tended to manage distracting self-awareness through self-coaching and refocusing on the client, novice therapists specifically mentioned managing problematic self-awareness through self-disclosure. In contrast, experienced therapists tended to manage problematic self-awareness by using thought stopping techniques. The results provide new avenues for examining therapists' in-session experiences and for investigating the effectiveness of different management strategies.