Danish Psychologists as Psychotherapists: Professional, Demographic and Personal Characteristics, and Change in Theoretical Orientations

Psychologists are by far the biggest group of professional psychotherapists in Denmark, and this article presents data from two samples of psychologist psychotherapists collected at an interval of 15 years. The subjects in both samples responded to the Development of Psychotherapists Common Core Questionnaire. The present paper aims to give a first overview of the samples describing their professional, practice, demographic and personal characteristics, and also provides a view of changes in the prevalence of different theoretical orientations in the samples collected in 1993-95 and 2009-10. The samples consist mainly of mature adults who are highly experienced therapists. What seems to be a historical shift from many years of Analytic/psychodynamic dominance to a major growth in interest in Cognitive therapies is documented. Both orientations are currently equally salient among the therapists and further analysis suggests a possible future scenario with Cognitive dominance. Personal and demographical characteristics are presented, including data on current life satisfaction and current life stress. Finally, ideas for future exploration and analysis are given.