Before I start, here is what I have written so far of my top 10 tips for Deliberate Practice in therapy:
- Get Feedback From Your Clients
- Tailor your goal-setting approach to suit each individual client
- Use Routine Outcome Measurement
I didn’t just want to jump in to this one. I believe this is one of those tips that needs some prior context first. If you didn’t catch my previous post, I highly recommend you check it out before you keep reading here. My previous post will help you understand the ‘why’ when it comes to catching your automatic behaviours as a therapist:
Automatic behaviours are what we do without conscious effort. Sometimes doing things automatically can be desirable, but I have noticed plenty of situations that this happens for me in an undesirable way. In the context of a therapy session with a client, this may include what I avoid in session or ways in which I might find myself trying too hard or overcompensating.
I would happily argue that automatic avoiding and overcompensation behaviours are a big part of what stops us from getting better as therapists. You can learn all the therapy in the world, but if you don’t work on these automatic behaviours, there’s slim chance you will actually improve as a therapist.
In order to tackle our automatic behaviours we need to become aware of them. The good news is that becoming aware is very achievable, especially if we use some helpful tools; such as reflection, prompts or even session recordings.
Helping you become aware is what this post is all about, as I’ll share the tools I have used as a part of my Deliberate Practice system to become aware of my undesired automatic behaviours as a therapist.
Reflect
Reflection is where I suggest starting – to have a good think about how you operate in a therapy session. I recommend starting this out with no prompts. Just jump into a word document, or grab a pen and paper, and see if you can make some points on what you could be doing better in a therapy session. I first wrote mine in May 2021, here’s what I noted wanting to address in my therapy sessions:
- More consistent and stronger consensus with clients.
- Setting client expectations with higher clarity.
- Sometimes being overly passive in response to a client.
- A tendency to avoid a client’s challenging emotions.
- An over-reliance on providing psychoeducation and ‘techniques’.
- Avoiding asking for feedback, even when administering the Session Rating Scale.
- Not outlining the intended ‘end-goal’ with a client.
- Suggesting session topics to clients before asking them what they wanted to address.
Prompts
If you need some prompts, ask yourself the following questions:
- What do I avoid with a client(s)?
- In what ways do ‘I try too hard’ or overcompensate in a therapy session
It can be worth considering those behaviours in different phases of your therapy session. For instance, considering how you start a session, what tends to happen in the middle of sessions and how you end a session.
You can also use the ‘Taxonomy of Deliberate Practice Activities in Psychotherapy’ document. It’s a useful tool and set of prompts to help you consider important elements of a therapy session and rate yourself. It’s ok if you’re not feeling entirely sure about whether you are accurately rating your abilities. Going through the Taxonomy with a supervisor or peer that knows your work well can be a really useful way of getting a second opinion.
Record
Finally, there’s always the option of recording your therapy sessions. Whether this be a camera or even audio only. In a way, this is the best option because you will get a very accurate representation of how you act in a therapy session. It can be confronting, but I would highly recommend doing this at least once. Of course, make sure you are gaining your client’s informed consent in doing this. I have a form I provide them which stipulates the purpose of the recording, how it will be used and their rights.
Don’t be afraid to give it time
Hopefully this has given you some ideas on how to reflect on your automatic behaviours as a therapist. It may take some time for these to become clear in your mind. Remember that it’s totally normal if you find this part overwhelming. I know that’s exactly how I felt when I first wrote my list of automatic behaviours that I wanted to address. Deliberate Practice is a very gradual process though and works best when done ‘one step at a time’.
The next time I write a DP Tip I will share some ideas on how to identify which of your automatic behaviours to start working on.
If you want to stay in the loop for future posts, then please feel free to sign up for our mailing list:
“Deliberate practice at its core is a very simple system to follow. The challenge is that DP can become incredibly nuanced if you endeavour to deepen and strengthen your DP efforts. I believe a lot of people get put off by the nuances when they try to pick up DP. In order for DP to be successful, we first need to understand and concentrate on the foundations. The simpler those foundations can be presented, the easier it will be to engage with them; helping people to feel confident to give DP a go. DP is like mathematics, you can’t do complex maths unless you feel confident in the basics – which is why I suck at maths and avoid it. However the foundations of DP make sense to me and this is what has allowed me to create my own system of DP with increasing complexity over time.“
A final note on why I’m writing these tips
Deliberate Practice Psych 
One response to “DP TIP #4: Identify your automatic behaviours”
[…] Identify your automatic behaviours […]
LikeLike