Influences on Training Programs. Competence in child psychiatry is largely determined by the character of the training. Psychodynamic individual psychotherapy continues as the cornerstone of most training. However. training programs with unique approaches to diagnosis, treatment, and research provide opportunities for trainees with special interests. Although not yet well supported, research. too, is making itself felt, especially in the areas of infant and child development. early intervention, epidemiology, and in the neural substrates of behavior. Psychodynamic child psychiatry remains a very strong. fundamental inHuence because of its explanatory power, which generates many researchable hypotheses. However. research and treatment evaluation are still needed. The knowledge explosion in child development, biochemistry, genetics, psychopharmacology, and new treatment methods earlier in life has overwhelmed training programs with curriculum material to teach, not enough time to teach it. and few methods to assess what has been learned. Assessment in Supervision . Mutual assessment by supervisors with the trainees on an ongoing basis is an important tool to correct deficiencies and to learn to assess areas of competence. Unless the process is an ongoing one and we agree about the skills to be assessed, we tend, in the usual 6-month or year reports, to feel guilty for permitting shoddy or poor work to go unnoticed. By default we pass trainees along who have not learned fundamental skills. and finally we graduate them, dissatisfied with them and ourselves but caught in an episodic and inadequate evaluatory process which visits our failures in training on the community. Trainees must also assess their teachers and provide feedback about the