Psychotherapy expertise in Singapore: A qualitative investigation

Abstract

Personal characteristics, developmental influences, and therapy practices of nine peer-nominated expert psychotherapists practicing in the diverse country of Singapore were identified using qualitative methods. Sixteen themes were organized within four categories: (a) personal characteristics (empathic, nonjudgmental, respectful); (b) developmental influences (experience, self-awareness, humility, self-doubt); (c) approach to practice (balance between support and challenge, flexible therapeutic stance, empowerment/strength-based approach, primacy of the therapeutic alliance, comfortable addressing spirituality, embraces working within a multicultural context); and (d) ongoing professional growth (professional development practices, benefits of teaching/training others, challenges to professional development in Singapore). Cross-cultural comparisons between this study and Jennings and Skovholt's (1999) study of Minnesota expert psychotherapists found considerable overlap of themes. Implications for research and practice of psychotherapy are offered.

Health care provider communication

“…Researchers are beginning to focus on issues such as therapeutic presence35, 39 and the integration of therapists' personal characteristics and learned techniques 40. Unlike other studies that have examined features of the therapeutic encounter,25, 26 the current study is unique by way of integrating various aspects of patient‐health care provider interaction into an empirical model of therapeutic effectiveness. The insights gleaned from this study should help inform best practices and provide a structure and vernacular for therapeutic effectiveness, promoting the development of expertise and communication skills among clinicians caring for patients with cancer.…”

“…Although training guidelines for psychosocial clinicians [19][20][21] identify basic counseling competencies, 22 there are few empirical models integrating the multitude of expert clinical skills needed to assuage the distress of patients living with cancer. 23 Various studies have examined core competencies of effective therapists [24][25][26] ; however, these have tended to rely on very small samples of expert informants, have addressed basic competencies for trainees, and have not focused on medical populations. 27,28 In this second phase of a 2-part study on cancerrelated distress, 29 we examined the elements of therapeutic effectiveness.…”

Qualitative meta-analysis of insight events in psychotherapy

“…Our meta-analysis is one of the first in psychotherapy research (for others see Hill et al, 2012;Jennings et al, 2008;Timulak, 2007;Timulak & Creaner, 2010). It was conducted by two meta-analysts working independently and then consensually agreeing on the final description.…”

“…This method (often referred to as meta-synthesis; cf. Thorne, Jensen, Kearney, Noblit, & Sandelowski, 2004) has been used in several psychotherapy research studies (Hill, Knox, & Hess, 2012;Jennings et al, 2008;Timulak, 2007;Timulak & Creaner, 2010). Qualitative meta-analysis is characterized by "the aggregating of a group of studies for the purposes of discovering the essential elements and translating the results into an end product that transforms the original results into a new conceptualization" (Schreiber, Crooks, & Stern, 1997, p. 314).…”

International Education and Service Learning

“…From previous research on expert therapists in Singapore (Jennings et al, 2008;Jennings et al, 2012), the second author maintained an ongoing relationship with a number of practitioners in various settings such as family service centers, college counseling centers, hospitals, and private practice. From previous research on expert therapists in Singapore (Jennings et al, 2008;Jennings et al, 2012), the second author maintained an ongoing relationship with a number of practitioners in various settings such as family service centers, college counseling centers, hospitals, and private practice.…”