Learning Psychotherapy Vignettes

Psychotherapy is a crucial element in the nation's healthcare system; yet there is no standard introduction to its practice. Each training program finds its own, sometimes idiosyncratic, niche and is not called to the task of demonstrating effectiveness. Those programs that offer structured training in key approaches tend not to present models that integrate the various schools. This CD-ROM, along with the accompanying book Learning Psychotherapy Vignettes, provides a much-needed foundation for training beginning psychotherapists in the crucial elements of psychotherapy. Unlike other programs, it is low on reading volume and high on homework. The homework includes rating transcripts according to standard research scales, discerning dysfunctional patterns from written and videotaped case vignettes, and analyzing transference and countertransference in actual sessions. Participants proceed through six modules: (1) verbal response modes and intentions, (2) working alliance, (3) inducing patterns, (4) change, (5) resistance, and (6) transference and countertransference. Pre- and post-training modules offer the opportunity to measure the effects of training. The Learning Psychotherapy program has been endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association as "an example of innovative training in the fundamentals of psychotherapy, with built-in assessment that is consistent with the objectives of the Commission on Psychotherapy by Psychiatrists and the APA to strengthen the psychotherapy education of future psychiatrists." The program has been piloted in the psychiatric residency training program at the University of Missouri-Columbia for four years, at Stanford University for two years, and at several other sites across the United States.