A pilot study of a deliberate practice intervention for therapist trainees

Abstract

Deliberate practice (DP) is well established and widely accepted in expert performance research within a variety of fields. Recently, researchers have started to examine if the same training principles can be applied to psychotherapists. The aim of this study was to examine the impact on intrapersonal skills and the experiences of a six-week DP intervention on seven therapist trainees (n = 7). To do this, a single-case research design was used, combining weekly repeated measurements and pre- and post-intervention measurements as well as a qualitative study analyzed by inductive thematic analysis. The results from our measurements indicate mixed results, where three out of seven participants achieved a significant positive intervention effect and we can see that most participants change in the hypothesized direction on mindful attention (MAAS), experiential avoidance (MEAQ), emotional processing (EPI), and self-compassion (SCS). The participants described gains on increased self-awareness, more compassionate treatment of oneself, increased tolerance of unpleasant feelings as well as a sense of being able to use their own experiences to understand their relationship to other people. The intervention also gave the participants an ability to hold contrasting thoughts and emotions and provided an increased sense of hope for their own future development. The findings of our study should be interpreted in light of its pilot nature and the limited extent of our design. However, it indicates that it seems possible to achieve positive results on intrapersonal skills from a relatively short period of training.