Principal components analysis of therapeutic orientations of doctoral programs in clinical psychology

Therapeutic orientation preferences in trainee clinical psychologists: Personality or training?

“…An analysis o f the therapeutic orientations taught on 96 clinical psychology training programs in the US, although limited by only collecting ratings from the directors of training, showed that the majority embraced a pluralistic approach, however also showed evidence of the existence o f programs allied to predominantly one approach (Nevid, Lavi & Primavera, 1987). This heterogeneity o f approach to teaching therapeutic orientations confirms the validity o f earlier criticisms of studies of therapeutic orientation on samples drawn from various training backgrounds, and highlights the importance o f investigating the role o f training in the development of orientation.…”

“…A further problem with the sampling approach o f many studies has been to invite participants from a variety of training backgrounds as a way o f ensuring groups of differing orientation (e.g. Schacht & Black, 1985), however this introduces the confounding factor of relative exposure to a plurality of approaches, with some trainings being more eclectic than others (Nevid et al, 1987). One cannot therefore be sure in such studies whether effects are due to the variables in question, such as personality and epistemic style, or whether they are more due to the monotheoretical trainings participants have undertaken.…”

Directors of clinical training: An insider's perspective.

“…Previous researchers studying clinical directors have focused on the attitudes of DCTs toward traditional and nontraditional dissertation research (Shemberg, Keeley, & Blum, 1989), ratings of therapeutic orientations in clinical training (Nevid, Lavi, & Primavera, 1986, 1987), attitudes about allowing nonclinical psychology graduate students to minor in clinical psychology (Holroyd, 1987), attitudes about allowing nonclinical psychology graduate students to minor in clinical psychology (Holroyd, 1987), the amount of training provided in clinical programs to study suicide (Bongar & Harmatz, 1989), and evaluations of a variety of educational areas in training programs (Steinpreis, Queen, & Tennen, 1992).…”