Category: Reimagining Education in Psychotherapy (REP)
Lego for Psychotherapists
Turns out that there there is a key difference between teaching kids how to play with legos, versus telling them what to build.
Teach the 3 Types of Knowledge and Not Just 1
I propose that in order for us to reimagine education in psychotherapy (REP), these 3 types of knowledge—content, process, and conditional—can serve as a primary conceptual framework.
Competence in content knowledge can create a false confidence of ability. Meanwhile, analogous to a good music not necessarily needing music theory to make good music, it also begs the question if content knowledge needs to serve as a basis for process and conditional knowledge. Perhaps if schools treat these 3 domains ecologically, and not hierarchical; learners might experience the critical interplay early in their higher education.
Kindling the Flame
There are two different ways to think about how we educate psychotherapists. The first is a banking model. Traditionally, in a banking model, we teach the theory, research, fill it in the learner’s minds, attempting to download and fill the learner’s mind with knowledge, and about 4 years later, we then send them off for practicum and begin the real work.
The second way is a kindling model. In this approach, we flip the banking model on its head, and start with the action, igniting a deep interest while continuously fanning the flame, and then learn to synthesise, join the dots and form new conscious knowledge—after the fact.
