‘Crossing the reflective bridge’: how therapists synthesise personal and professional development from self-practice/self-reflection during CBT training

Abstract

Over the last two decades, self-practice/self-reflection (SP/SR) has been advocated as a useful experiential teaching method on CBT training programmes. As part of this, theoretical positions point to the importance of there being an explicit process of ‘bridging’ between what is learnt about the self (personal development) and the implications of this for clinical practice (professional development). However, exactly how participants experience this synthesis as part of their engagement in SP/SR has not yet been clarified. As such, the present study set out to explicate trainee CBT therapists’ experiences of this process, in order to further our understanding of how they synthesise their personal and professional development during training. Nineteen trainees took part in the study, each consenting to a 1000-word written summary of their learning from SP/SR being entered into the dataset and analysed using thematic analysis. The analysis identified five interconnected themes, illustrating how trainees had (i) identified self-schemas, (ii) increased their awareness of personal context, and (iii) conceptualised the role of the self in the therapeutic process; they had then achieved (iv) personal–professional development via experiential change methods, resulting in (v) perceived benefits for their clinical practice. SP/SR may therefore be a useful vehicle to enhance personal and professional development during training by helping trainees to understand and address the role of the self in cognitive behavioural psychotherapy. Tentative implications for CBT training and practice have been offered. Key learning aims (1) To summarise key theoretical positions and research outcomes underpinning the use of SP/SR as a CBT training method to enhance personal and professional development. (2) To understand trainee experiences of synthesising personal and professional development from SP/SR during training. (3) To consider implications for CBT training and ongoing professional practice.