Landa DP, Vargas FJJ, García PÁF

Language: Spanish
References: 0
Page: 355-372
PDF size: 386.24 Kb.

ABSTRACT

In training on clinical psychology is essential to establish a set of skills, that range from conceptual skills to assessment, design, implementation and monitoring of therapeutic interventions ones. Clinical psychologist has to show not only theoretical and applied knowledge about psychological distress, but has also to develop a series of very specific interpersonal skills that define its professional role. Therapeutic relationship is a particular type of relationship that must reflect at all times a balance between closeness and trust, besides concerning prudence and sufficient distance at the same time. One of the variables that may influence the effectiveness of psychological treatment is indisputably the therapist’s verbal and non-verbal attitudes, that is, its social and interpersonal skills. Even though researches have conducted studies on expert therapist’s characteristics, results have not been entirely conclusive. While some authors argue that training therapists must focus on the theoretical framework, others argue that regardless of the theoretical framework, there are general social interpersonal abilities that can be taught. Taking into account these areas of clinical competence, conceptual-methodological skills and interpersonal skills, research in the latter has focused only on personality, image and empathy. However, the thesis of this paper is to establish that interpersonal relationship competences are most important to teach. It is therefore proposed here that therapeutic outcome will be accomplished in the extent that social interpersonal training takes part in the whole learning process of clinical psychology students. It describes the structured procedure for establishing these generic skills and instructional design assumptions that were used for developing and training in a workshop approach. It discusses the appropriateness of anchoring the clinical psychologist’s training programs to the knowledge generated by contemporary teaching theories and not to the magical tradition of introducing students in psychotherapy.