The unknown in learning to be a psychotherapist.

In this paper it is argued that becoming a psychotherapist involves learning about the unknown, not so much as a commodity or as something to be acquired but rather in the sense of learning to speak from our unknowing. If learning about the unknown is considered important in being a psychotherapist, what are the best ways of developing such a practice? The unknown can be approached, broadly speaking, in two ways. Some writers attempt to explain the known of the unknown, for example conceptualised as the unconscious whereas others attempt to hold open the question of the unknown of the unknown. It is argued here that experience and experience of the relational is the milieu for the kind of learning associated with both the known of the unknown and the unknown of the unknown. These ways of viewing the unknown are considered by exploring how they emerge in both learning theory and psychotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]