Reflection,
First of all, I just wanna' say that it's good to hear from you. I'd been thinking about you lately. I also want to say that, based on what I've observed about you on this and other forums, if you are who I think you are, you have impressed me as having strong therapy skills--your responses to others have been highly empathic and constructive, so I guess that I'm not at all surprised that you get very positive feedback from your supervisors and clients.
I too have shared the feeling that I need to maintain very high standards. I often feel that if others in my professional community knew I was a survivor that they would dismiss me out of hand, so all through school I've worked very hard to stay at the top of my class, done lots of outside reading on my clients, etc., etc, just so that if those in power found out, that it would be very difficult to put together the empirical evidence to kick me out. I've driven myself to a level that has been, well, unkind to myself.
I also find that I monitor myself very closely, attending to indications that maybe I'm not healthy enough to be where I am or do what I'm doing for a living. I notice one difference between your description of your monitoring and how I do mine, but I don't know if it is useful to you or not. I'll share it, knowing that if it's not helpful, you will feel free to not concern yourself with it.
You mention that when you identify feelings that you see as an indication that you aren't ready for your job as a therapist, you "rigidly suppress" them. I'm constantly on the lookout for such feelings, but when I identify them, I am more likely to aggressively and intensely process them--journal, talk with the peer supervisor, consult with one of a very few (and very important) trusted friends, make plans for ways that I can confront those feelings and change them, or change my responses to them so that they don't haunt me in the same way.
I suspect that one of the reasons I approach, rather than avoid this stuff is that, while I maintain serious fears that no one else will ever view me as a competent therapist, at some basic level I have a belief that I can do this and do it well. I won't say that that belief never wavers-it does, a lot. But it is easier for me to attack, rather than run from my mental health maintenance work when I believe that I am capable of overcoming the abuse and to use what I've learned from it to help others.
On the other hand, when I'm in my clinic, talking with colleagues and actively working with clients, yes, I suppress feelings and defer them to a later time, but not much later. I guess what I'm wondering (and you have no obligation to address what I'm wondering) is if you suppress to defer to a time when you can take care of yourself, or if you suppress because you are afraid that if you acknowledge the feelings, you will draw the conclusion that you can't do your job (or, of course, some other reason I have not thought of. It sounds like you have lots of objective evidence that you can do your job, and in fact, do it quite well.
Ok, I'm starting to feel like I may be preaching or pushing my sense of reality upon you, neither of which are things that I want to do--I just wanted to give you some avenues to explore and hope that they are useful to you. I'm going to stop and get out of your way now for you to do the exploring if you want to.
Namaste
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