THE AQUISITION OF PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC SKILL - AN EMPIRICAL-STUDY

acquisition of psychotherapy skillfulness is an important aspect of tr aining programs in psychiatry and clinical psychology. Psychotherapy s upervision is employed to teach and monitor the development of these c linical skills. The Supervisor Report (SR) is a questionnaire designed to systematically assess therapeutic behaviors and global psychothera peutic skillfulness of therapists conducting psychodynamic psychothera py. SRs were employed to examine changes in trainees' skillfulness ove r the course of training. Nests were applied to evaluate differences b etween the average scores of trainees in the first half of their train ing compared to the last half of their training. Comparisons of the sc ores for Psychotherapeutic Techniques and assessments of Global Skillf ulness were in the predicted direction: Trainees in the advanced porti on of their training were rated as more skillful than at the beginning . This study provides some evidence that psychotherapy skillfulness is acquired over time in training. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.