Deliberate practice exercises help trainees achieve competence in essential accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy skills and apply them in a variety of contexts while honing their own personal style.
These exercises present role-playing scenarios in which two trainees act as a client and a therapist, switching back and forth under the guidance of a supervisor. The therapist improvises appropriate and authentic responses to client statements organized into three difficulty levels-beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
Each of the first 12 exercises focuses on a single skill to help clients access core emotions, process past traumas, and build secure attachments. The skills include moment-to-moment tracking, validating and reframing anxieties and defenses, and initiating portrayals (i.e., speaking to an imagined other or self). Two comprehensive exercises follow in which trainees integrate these skills into a single session.
Step-by-step instructions guide participants through the exercises, identify criteria for mastering the skills, and explain how to monitor and adjust difficulty. Guidelines to help trainers and trainees get the most out of training are also provided.
Natasha Prenn, LCSW, is senior faculty at the AEDP Institute. She sees individuals and couples for therapy and clinicians for accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy supervision in addition to teaching, presenting workshops, and writing. She pioneered the AEDP essential skills and advanced skills courses. She is coauthor of Supervision Essentials for Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy. Dr. Prenn is a founding editor of Transformance: The AEDP Journal. She has presented numerous workshops and trainings and written several book chapters and articles focused on the nuts and bolts of what to actually say and do in AEDP sessions.
Hanna Levenson, PhD, is professor emerita at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. She also maintains a private practice in Oakland where she sees individuals and couples for therapy and professionals for consultation/supervision. Dr. Levenson has specialized in brief dynamic therapy and supervision for over 40 years. She has authored over 85 professional papers and multiple books, including Deliberate Practice in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Deliberate Practice in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, and has released five professional videos with APA illustrating her approaches. Dr. Levenson received the Distinguished Contribution to Psychology as a Profession Award given by the California Psychological Association.
Alexandre Vaz, PhD, is director of training at the Sentio Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program and Sentio Counseling Center. He has authored many books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and is coeditor of the book series The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books). Dr. Vaz has held multiple committee roles for the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). He is founder and host of "Psychotherapy Expert Talks," an acclaimed interview series with distinguished psychotherapists and researchers.
Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD, is program director of the Sentio Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program, and executive director of the Sentio Counseling Center. He has authored many books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and is coeditor of the book series The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books). In 2017, Dr. Rousmaniere published the widely cited article in The Atlantic Monthly, "What Your Therapist Doesnt Know." Dr. Rousmaniere supports the open-data movement and publishes clinical outcome data at drtonyr.com. He is president of Division 29 of APA.
