From Head to Body: Learning experiential therapeutic work
The project examines how psychology students learn to work experientially in therapy, and whether facilitated in-depth groups add value beyond teaching alone.
Change in therapy often occurs when the client moves from talking about an experience to being in it, exploring something that has not yet been put into words. The project explores how students can learn to notice how closely the client is in contact with their own experience, and to help the client come closer to that experience through, among other things, evocative empathy, imagery and tentative guesses. A central aim is also greater confidence in meeting other people’s emotions, and an understanding that being present and exploring is important therapeutic work in itself.
The whole cohort receives two days of teaching in experiential work in therapy. Twelve students also take part in eight in-depth groups based on exercises from the teaching, while the rest of the cohort serves as a comparison group. Learning is examined through questionnaires, vignettes, reflection logs and focus group interviews, with the Experiencing Scale as a common thread. The project will provide knowledge about how experiential therapeutic skills can be taught and evaluated in professional psychology training.
External Collaborator:
Aksel Inge Sinding, psychologist and clinic manager, Institute for Psychological Counselling (IPR), Asker
Members:
Financial/grant information:
Internal funding.