Don't leave teaching to chance: learning objectives for psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision

The way in which the competencies for psychodynamic psychotherapy specified by the Psychiatry Residency Review Committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education translate into the day-to-day work of individual supervision remains unstudied and unspecified. The authors hypothesized that despite the existence of competencies in psychodynamic psychotherapy, residents did not know what they should be learning in psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision.

Twenty-four psychiatric residents in PGYs 3 and 4 at Columbia University were asked to complete an anonymous course evaluation about their learning experience in psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision. The evaluation had eight items: seven yes/no questions and one open-ended question.

Sixteen of 24 surveys were returned, a response rate of 66.6%. Of the residents who responded, eight said they did not know what they were supposed to be learning in psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision, nine had not discussed this with their supervisor, and six did not believe that their discussions in psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision correlated with didactic courses.

These results support the need for specific learning objectives for psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision that can be communicated to both supervisors and supervisees to facilitate the process of learning and assessment.