The third year of postgraduate study: a bridge to psychotherapy

The third year of postgraduate study: a bridge to psychotherapy

September marked the beginning of the third and final year of my postgraduate study, and with it my journey through psychology — already eight years long — continues. This path, filled with study, research, and teaching, brings me closer to what I experience as my true vocation: psychotherapy. 🕎

The milestones along this road are substantial: thirteen published academic papers, teaching students, participation in continuing professional education programs. Yet these achievements are only the construction of a bridge — a bridge I am building for myself and for others, so that after completing my candidate degree I can devote my life to helping people find light even in the darkest corners of their souls.

⚜️ Pablo Picasso once said:

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

That principle resonates with my academic and professional work. My research focuses on the dialectic of good and evil because, as a future psychotherapist, I need to understand the darkness people may bring into the room with them.

Here Irvin Yalom’s thought is especially important to me:

A central part of our professional ethics is that we must close our eyes to nothing.

The phrase reflects the depth and difficulty of psychotherapy. As therapists, we cannot turn away from the darkest and most painful aspects of human nature. That requires not only theoretical knowledge but also the ability to understand and feel the depth of life situations while remaining beside a person even when they have made mistakes or acted wrongly. Understanding darkness is not merely an academic interest for me; it is an ethical obligation.

My postgraduate research concentrates on how the dialectic of good and evil influences personality development. I believe that refusing to avoid the negative, and learning to engage with it consciously, can be part of a productive life.

We therapists must be open to all of our own dark and shameful sides, and there are moments when talking about them gives patients the opportunity to stop scourging themselves for their own real or imagined crimes.

And I want to put it in the words of one of my favorite performers:

I have seen everything: from Oxford to Vauxhall,

From lobster and coke on trays to street robbery,

From free oysters and postcodes under sneakers —

I know both the grime and the gloss of this island.

Or, as I once wrote:

From basements, addicts, monsters, and voids,

To solid offices, dissertations, and heights.

There was a time of diving into darkness,

There was a time of brilliant flashes, paradise made visible.

This road is not over yet, but I can already see its direction. Once I receive my candidate degree, I intend to begin practicing psychotherapy and devote my work to helping people explore their darkness and find light.

One autumn evening, grey and cold,

An aged traveler walked the mountain road.

His journey had but little left to run,

When a deep chasm stopped him before it was done.

The abyss did not frighten the traveler away:

He climbed down the slope through stones and spray,

Reached the far side beneath the stars’ dim light,

And began building a bridge in the night.

A passerby asked him: “Old man, have you lost your mind?

You are already across; leave this work behind.

Warmth and rest are waiting for you ahead —

Why waste your strength here instead?”

The old man raised his head: “Behind me today

A young man set out along this same way.

This chasm is nothing to someone like me,

But he is still young and does not yet see.

I am old; I need nothing more for myself.

This bridge is not for me. It is for him.”

There is still a great deal of work ahead, but I am ready for the challenges and hope that through my work I can make the world at least a little better.

★★★★★ 5/5

Anton Kolhonen

Email: kolhonena@gmail.com
For any questions, write to me on Telegram.