Supervisor-trainee cotherapy as a method for individual psychotherapy training

One of the problems in the training of young psychotherapists that educators have been reluctant to discuss involves charging a relatively inexperienced beginner with the responsibility of successfully conducting therapy, with a supervisor usually available only between sessions. To ask young surgeons to perform operations and then bring in process notes or audio or video tapes of the procedure for supervisory commentary would be considered reprehensible. And yet, despite educators' commitment to the value of clinical wisdom coupled wtih a sound theoretical rationale, all too often junior trainees and their patients are exposed to the risks of unsuccessful therapeutic encounters. This paper describes a model for psychotherapy training which we have found to be quite useful: cotherapy of individual patients by a supervisor and trainee. During the four years that this model has been in use in our clinic, we have come to appreciate the theoretical and practical issues which are raised when it is employed.