Trainee self-assessment of cognitive behaviour therapy competence during and after training

• Published in: Cognitive behaviour therapist 2020, Vol.13, Article e1
• Main Authors: Beale, Sarah, Liness, Sheena, Hirsch, Colette R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agreements; Behavior modification; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive therapy; Hypotheses; Investigations; Professional development; Psychologists; Ratings & rankings; Self awareness; Self evaluation; Skills; Supervision; Therapists; Therapy
• ISSN: 1754-470X; 1754-470X
• DOI: 10.1017/S1754470X19000357

Large-scale cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) training and implementation programmes, such as the pioneering Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative in the UK, aim to develop a workforce of competent therapists who can deliver evidence-based interventions skilfully. Self-awareness of competence enables CBT therapists to accurately evaluate their clinical practice and determine professional development needs. The accuracy of self-assessed competence, however, remains unclear when compared with assessments conducted by markers with expertise in CBT practice and evaluation. This study investigated the relationship between self- and expert-rated competence – assessed via therapy recordings rated on the Cognitive Therapy Scale Revised (CTS-R) scale – for a large sample of IAPT CBT trainees during training and, for the first time, at post-training follow-up. CBT trainees ( n = 150) submitted therapy recordings at baseline, mid-training and end-of-training. At 12+ month follow-up, a subset of former trainees ( n = 30) submitted recordings from clinical practice. There were positive relationships ( r = .27 to .56) between self and expert CTS-R scores at all time points. The proportion of tapes demonstrating significant agreement between self and expert ratings (CTS-R difference