Development and Feasibility of a Protocol to Improve Clinical Trainees Awareness of Interpersonal Processes Using Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics

A major foundation for all clinical competencies is the ability to sensitively attend to and understand the moment-to-moment processes occurring between trainees and their clients. The current article reports on the development and feasibility of a training protocol to help clinical trainees become more attuned to moment-to-moment processes during psychotherapy sessions within a practicum training setting. This study uses interpersonal processes as an exemplar of how to use this training framework. This protocol employs a novel methodology called Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics in an innovative way by having clinical trainees and client dyads rate both self and others’ moment-to-moment interpersonal behavior across two psychotherapy sessions. Two therapist–client dyads completed this training protocol. Feedback was provided through data visualizations and narrative summaries of the data. Both trainees who participated in the present study reported that the feedback integrating questionnaire and moment-to-moment interpersonal variables was useful in their conceptualization of their clients’ problems, as well as in helping them reflect on their own interpersonal behavior in session. In this article, we combine theory and method to develop a feasible and empirically supported clinical training methodology that is applicable across treatment orientations. All materials to implement this training protocol are available on the Open Science Framework, allowing interested supervisors to integrate this training into their practica (https://osf.io/8f2th/).