ABSTRACT
What can sustain a passionate commitment to clinical practice? This chapter is a personal account that describes phases in the author’s relationship to her profession. In the earliest phase, anxiety supplied more than sufficient motivation for her to strive toward clinical competence. The author felt a keen determination to “make it” in her chosen profession. Fear of failure, and a fierce desire to become a better clinical instrument, drove her to work hard. The next phase brought more security and a greater readiness to experiment. Much of the time the need to prove her worth gave way to excitement about forging a personally resonant therapeutic style. Her passion came from a fierce desire to develop her own voice, clinically and theoretically. The remainder of the chapter considers how passion for doing clinical work can survive in the later stages of a career, when professional identity is more fully established. With each passing year, as treatments end, the author considers how she can maintain passion for doing clinical work despite facing repeated losses of patients and other inevitable challenges.
