The Effect of Trainee Experience in Psychotherapy on Client Treatment Outcome

Some psychotherapy research demonstrates that client outcome is unrelated to therapist Experience is generally defined by either the degree that the therapist holds, or the total number of months the therapist has been conducting therapy. Few studies address the amount of trainee experience in relation to client outcome, and few use fine-grained indices of experience (e.g., hours of therapy). To address these points, the current study evaluated the relation between trainee experience and client outcome in a training clinic in which empirically validated treatments were used. Results demonstrated that client outcome was significantly related to total number of client contact hours. The importance of training therapists to be experts in the implementation of well-defined therapeutic techniques is discussed.