This article presents a qualitative research interview method informed by psychoanalysis, which can collect data beyond the subjective report of the participants. The method has been used to study acquisition of psychodynamic understanding and therapy technique among student therapists in psychology. Within the psychodynamic tradition, the subjective report of every person is viewed as potentially distorted by defense processes. Moreover, relational patterns in an interaction are viewed as significant data about the intrapsychic object relations of a person provided that the person is placed in a projective situation. Since common qualitative interview methods focus primarily on verbal data, such psychodynamic assumptions represent a methodological challenge. To collect a wider scope of data than merely the subjective report, a research interview has been developed based on a certain degree of projection, a psychoanalytic listening perspective, and the use of emotional expression in the interview relation as data. Subsequently, relational scenarios and incidences of defense processes in the research participants are inferred.

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The article argues that the concepts of relational scenario, structuralized affect and actualized affect are proposed candidates for observation of changes in relational ways of being as it is expressed in transference. A psychoanalytic follow-up interview of a former analytic patient is presented in order to illustrate how change in relational ways of being may be registered and studied. By triangulating the patient's verbal report of change with nonverbal information and transference-countertransference dynamics, one may grasp qualitative changes in relational ways of being. The case presented illustrates a former patient's on-going process of working towards representing aggression in a more direct manner and how this process is made observable with the aid of the proposed concepts in the interview situation. The proposed concepts of relational scenario, structuralized and actualized affect discussed are compared to the concept of transference used in studies of core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT).

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Background: Increased awareness of the individual therapist’s vital contribution to treatment processes and outcome, and the potential role of training and supervision in this respect, warrants a close look at the empirical and theoretical literature on teaching and learning of therapists and counselors.Methods: A scoping review of the literature will be conducted based on an overarching research question: when authors have reported on learning processes and acquisition of knowledge and skills in psychotherapy/counseling and supervision/training literature over the past 30 years (since 1990), what evidence, concepts, theories, and models have they reported? A comprehensive search strategy is carried out to identify publications indexed in Scopus, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Publications will be sorted according to four categories: (1) conceptual/theoretical; (2) empirical (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods); (3) review, meta-synthesis or -analysis; (4) training program/model description. Procedures for the upcoming scoping review of conceptual/theoretical, empirical, and training program/model description publications will be outlined.Conclusion: Besides clarifying existing perspectives, practices, and evidence, and documenting the shifting trends of the field during the past three decades, this scoping review identifies knowledge gaps that point to vital future directions for research and theory development. Moreover, the comprehensive scoping lays the foundation for subsequent, more focused systematic reviews that address identified key research topics more specifically.

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