Welcome Caroline!
I am talking about mental health professionals having experience with mental illness of their own.
I look forward to your writing on that subject.
A kind-of related thought: A friend relayed an interesting discussion with their therapist to me in which he described the importance of therapists working out their own issues before offering help to their clients. In his view, too many therapists haven't adequately gone through this process. One effect of this, he described, can be therapists deliberately steering conversation with their clients to avoid certain topics that they find painful to explore for personal reasons. Certainly not a perspective I'd considered before.
Good to hear. And an interesting thought you mention... Because when has that therapist gone through such a process enough? Do all of their issues have to be worked out before they can help others? Or maybe they don't even realize they have anything important to work through. It sounds like avoiding certain topics for personal reasons would definitely be something to look into. Thanks for your comment!
I think determining when this hasn't been adequately done is easier: I can imagine that paying attention to their own emotional in response to certain topics can reveal signs of that.
I agree!