Why Do I Need Further Training?
However well qualified you are when you start your practice you should still give some thought to your future development. Many professional organisations insist that their members spend a specified minimum amount of time each year in continued personal development (CPD) in order to comply with membership requirements. However, despite any formal need for further training or qualifications, if you genuinely want to ‘grow’ both your practice and yourself, you should be seeking out fresh challenges on a regular basis.
These can either be some formal training, or can be new experiences such as running workshops or writing a book. The more experienced you are, the more techniques you have at your disposal for helping your clients reach their full potential and overcome their problems. Experience aids creativity, and the more creative you become, the more individual and personal is your approach to your work.
What kind of training should I invest in?
Further Training Can Take Many Forms:
- further professional training in your particular therapy
- training in associated therapies
- experiential training
- researching and writing
- teaching and mentoring
- supervision and peer group support
- egroups and newsletters
- keeping self-development and training logs.
Further Professional Training
You may already be quite clear as to your immediate training requirements, but may not have considered your future needs or the strategic path you wish to take. If you need to do some further work on this, see
Chapter 10 for some ideas to help you formulate your plans. If you have decided on a particular specialism, or are aware of the next step on your career path, it will be easier to decide on the appropriate courses to help you achieve your aims.
Where Can I Find A Training Course ?
Many of the schools or organisations that you trained with will have other courses, workshops or seminars offering you a chance to develop your skills further. For example, a hypnotherapist might want to specialise in rebirthing or past life regression, a healer might want to extend their work by healing animals, an aromatherapist might want a course to help them work more effectively with clients with learning disabilities.
Various training courses are listed on internet complementary health directories, for example, Healthy Pages and Positive Health (see
Chapter 12 for the website addresses). You could also check out the various complementary health, and professional therapy, journals. Friends or colleagues may be able to recommend relevant courses to you, and will be able to advise you on which ones they found the most useful. If you are a member of any therapy-based egroups, you could ask the group for advice and recommendations.
Checking The Course Before You Book
It is always a good idea to check various details about the course before you confirm your booking to make sure that you are getting good value for your money. Whatever course or further training you decide on make sure it is properly accredited, and check the qualifications of the trainers to ensure that your training will be conducted at an appropriate level.
Be clear about what you want to gain from the course before you book it. If the course prospectus does not cover all your points, raise any questions with the trainers.
Training In Associated Therapies
If you undertake further training in therapies associated with your main practice work, this will obviously increase your portfolio of skills and the range of therapies you can offer. In addition you will often find that you can mix and match techniques from one therapy to another if you take a creative approach. For example, a massage therapist might also decide to train in Bach flower remedies or aromatherapy. These skills can then be brought creatively into the massage session by recommending Bach flower remedies which might help your client to deal with their negative thought patterns, or using aromatherapy oils as‘background’ scent to increase the relaxing effect of the massage or to help clear a client’s blocked sinuses.