Rethinking Psychotherapy Training and Supervision: The Case for Deliberate Practice

Psychotherapy supervision research has led to mixed, often disappointing results as to its effects on clinicians' skills acquisition and final treatment outcomes. Put simply, it is unclear if traditional supervision methods reliably increase therapist effectiveness. To answer this longstanding challenge, Deliberate Practice (DP) is now increasingly being recognized by leading authors and researchers as an effective method for enhancing therapists' skills. Despite this growing agreement about the potential advantages of DP methods, there remains a shortage of research, guidelines and real-world case presentations for their implementation in clinical supervision. In this introductory paper, we present an issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session that showcases diverse modalities and approaches through which DP can be integrated into clinical supervision. To set the stage, this paper presents the major definitions, research evidence, and potential benefits and challenges of a DP-informed psychotherapy supervision. We highlight that while available research is promising, much is still needed to elevate the promise of DP into an evidence-based learning method that reliable increases therapist's skills and outcomes. As such, we conclude with a call encouraging clinicians, trainers and researchers alike to experiment with the methods here described and contribute to this exciting new development in the field.