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Deliberate practice exercises help trainees achieve competence in essential accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy skills and apply them in a variety of contexts while honing their own personal style.
These exercises present role-playing scenarios in which two trainees act as a client and a therapist, switching back and forth under the guidance of a supervisor. The therapist improvises appropriate and authentic responses to client statements organized into three difficulty levels--beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Each of the first 12 exercises focuses on a single skill to help clients access core emotions, process past traumas, and build secure attachments. The skills include moment-to-moment tracking, validating and reframing anxieties and defenses, and initiating portrayals (i.e., speaking to an imagined other or self). Two comprehensive exercises follow in which trainees integrate these skills into a single session. Step-by-step instructions guide participants through the exercises, identify criteria for mastering the skills, and explain how to monitor and adjust difficulty. Guidelines to help trainers and trainees get the most out of training are also provided.Alexandre Vaz, PhD, is director of training at the Sentio Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program and Sentio Counseling Center. He has authored many books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and is coeditor of the book series The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books). Dr. Vaz has held multiple committee roles for the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). He is founder and host of "Psychotherapy Expert Talks," an acclaimed interview series with distinguished psychotherapists and researchers.
Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD, is program director of the Sentio Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program, and executive director of the Sentio Counseling Center. He has authored many books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and is coeditor of the book series The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books). In 2017, Dr. Rousmaniere published the widely cited article in The Atlantic Monthly, "What Your Therapist Doesn't Know." Dr. Rousmaniere supports the open-data movement and publishes clinical outcome data at drtonyr.com. He is president of Division 29 of APA.