Using Deliberate Practice in Schema Therapy Supervision & Training

Deliberate Practice is a method for developing mastery that has recently been applied to psychotherapy training, including schema therapy. This presentation, by the authors of “The Deliberate Practice of Schema Therapy (2024), focuses on how trainers and supervisors of ST can use deliberate practice techniques to improve the effectiveness of their training and supervision. Deliberate practice identifies the key micro-skills of ST interventions, defines their core criteria, and provides clinical vignettes with client statements for therapists to respond to. The client then provides feedback on how the therapist’s statement affected them, followed by the trainer or supervisor giving feedback on whether the skill’s criteria have been met, with suggestions for improvement. The therapist then formulates a new response based on the feedback, and the role play is repeated as many times as needed to successfully meet the skill criteria and receive a positive client response. This is the unique contribution of deliberate practice – the opportunity to repeatedly practice interventions with client and trainer-supervisor feedback and specific skill criteria to develop mastery. The presentation will give attendees the opportunity to experience deliberate practice exercises with feedback from the presenters.

Wendy Behary and Joan Farrell are authors of The Deliberate Practice of Schema Therapy, APA Press, 2023