Are advanced psychiatry residents more skillful than beginning residents in the conduct of psychodynamic psychotherapy?

The psychotherapy skills of psychiatry residents were assessed by using a s tructured-response supervisor inventory, the Supervisor Report (SR). Longit udinal data on the same resident across time showed a small but positive tr end toward the acquisition of skill in doing psychodynamic psychotherapy. M ixed cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons between ratings of the be ginning residents and advanced residents demonstrated a significant, but sm all, increase in skill over the course of outpatient training. SR score cha nges also corroborated observational data on individual residents. While th ese findings suggest the utility of the SR in measuring changes in psychoth erapy skill, the results must be considered in light of the relatively poor interrater reliability and only somewhat better test-retest reliability.