The impacts of a self-as-laboratory informed psychotherapy curriculum on student learning, mental health, help-seeking, mental illness stigma, self-care, and psychological flexibility

Pakenham, KP (Kenneth)
Australië

Submission type

Oral only

Scheduled

Parallel Session V: Derkinderen kamer, 09-06-2018, 09:00 - 10:30

Kernwoorden

psychotherapy undergraduate curriculum, self-practice, self-care

Onderzoeksgebied

Other

Introductie

To address the challenges of teaching psychotherapy in large undergraduate classes, a psychotherapy curriculum was developed that uses innovative self-practice and reflective teaching and learning strategies within a self-as-laboratory framework suited to a clinical psychology training context. The curriculum covered most well established prominent psychotherapies. This study evaluated the impacts of this new psychotherapy curriculum on student learning, mental health, attitudes towards help-seeking and mental illness, self-care, and psychological flexibility.

Materiaal en methodes

124 third year psychology students completed an online survey at the start of semester and 14 weeks later at the end of semester. 56 students were enrolled in the psychotherapy course and 68 students not enrolled in the course constituted the comparison group.

Resultaten

Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that relative to the comparison group, the psychotherapy students significantly improved on psychological well-being, reflective learning, self-practice, mental help-seeking, mental illness stigma, self-care, and psychological flexibility. Qualitative data showed that most psychotherapy students viewed the self-practice, self-reflective and self-care course components as essential in learning the fundamentals of psychotherapy.

Conclusie

This study provides preliminary support for a psychotherapy undergraduate curriculum that is based on a self-as-laboratory approach.