The influence of video recordings on beginning therapists’ learning in psychotherapy training

Background: Due to the development of technologies and the low costs, video recording of psychotherapy sessions have gained ground in training and supervision. While some praise the advantages others decline to use this technological aid for ethical, theoretical or clinical reasons. Despite the current relatively widespread use of video, one finds only a very limited number of empirical studies on how these recordings specifically influence the learning process of the beginning therapist.
Aim: After a brief discussion of the pro and cons of the use of video recordings this paper presents a qualitative, explorative study of the influence video recordings have on the beginning therapist and his/her evolving learning process in becoming a psychotherapist.
Methods: 24 beginning therapists in training at an outpatient university clinic setting filled out a questionnaire containing ten open-ended questions concerning the influence of the video recordings. The answers were analyzed in accordance with Hill et al.’s (2005) guidelines for Consensual Qualitative Research. Furthermore, subjects rated the overall influence on their learning on a nine point Likert scale.
Results: A major finding is that video recordings facilitate the learning experience of the beginning therapist. They report how video helped them gaining an overall deeper understanding of psychotherapy and themselves as therapists. At the beginning they felt anxious and exposed but it decreased over time and became a learning facilitating instrument instead. (The analysis will be completed in the middle of December).
Discussion: The validity, reliability, and limitations of the study will be discussed along practical and theoretical implications.