Why Does Being a Therapist Not Make Me a Better Mother? A Heuristic Self-Search Inquiry into the Duality of the Mother/Child Psychotherapist
| dc.contributor.advisor | Tudor, Keith | |
| dc.contributor.author | Ho, Ka Wai | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-03-10T22:49:22Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-03-10T22:49:22Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024 | |
| dc.description | This research portrayed my lived experience by answering, "What is my experience of the duality of being a mother and becoming a psychotherapist?" Adopting Moustakas's heuristic methodology and Sela-Smith's heuristic self-search inquiry (HSSI), I collected data through a process diary, recollections, dreams, concourse with others, and academic papers. The data was analysed, and the essence of meaning was identified from emergent themes by employing heuristic concepts and processes. The discoveries were presented through the explication of write-ups and a creative synthesis of artworks. My main finding was a differentiation of two developmental processes: 1) the Therapist's Path on which Therapist, a non-mother therapist, transits to Mother(T), a theory-informed mother who, in turn, transforms her professional identity into Therapist(M), a therapist with motherhood; and 2) the Mother's Path on which Mother, a biological mother, transits to Therapist(M), a therapist with motherhood who, in turn, transforms her motherhood into Mother(T), a theory-informed mother. An ongoing cycle from Mother to Mother(T) captured my self-transformation from an unconscious mother to a psychodynamic mother. This self-inquiry associated the mother/therapist duality to a broader context of 1) the causation between the psychological births of my dual identities; 2) an integration journey of theory and motherhood; and 3) wounded healers. Specifically, an awareness of my position on my Mother's Path clarified an identification confusion, which addressed my long-seeking query of "Why does being a therapist not make me a better mother?" The implications of my research are threefold: 1) for practice and to be of value to psychotherapists who position at different phases on their Mother's Path; 2) for training and to advocate the impact of the trainee's role identification between their personal self as well as professional self; and 3) for future research on the two differentiated developmental paths of mental health professional parents. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10292/20748 | |
| dc.publisher | Auckland University of Technology | |
| dc.title | Why Does Being a Therapist Not Make Me a Better Mother? A Heuristic Self-Search Inquiry into the Duality of the Mother/Child Psychotherapist | |
| dc.type | Other Form of Assessable Output |