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Experienced therapists can give psychology students an extra boost

Psychology students who will work with patients can benefit from observing experienced therapists at work.

Therapist gestures with a pen while a student listens during a counselling session.
Researchers see that psychology students who were allowed to work with therapists become better at meeting people afterwards.
Steinar Brandslet journalist at Norwegian SciTech News
Presented by: Presented by: Presented by: NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Published

Clinical psychologists work closely with people who are struggling in order to prevent, assess, and treat their mental health problems. 

They therefore need to be skilled at interacting with other people.

A new study from researchers at NTNU suggests that psychology students can become better at talking with patients if they are allowed to observe experienced therapists at work.

“We have investigated whether this type of ‘master–apprentice’ training can enhance psychology students’ relational skills,” says Steffen André Fagerbakk.

He is a researcher at NTNU’s Department of Psychology.

Portrait photo of man
“We found that the students who had the opportunity to shadow therapists at work become significantly better at interacting with people afterwards,” says Steffen André Fagerbakk.

Job shadowing

It takes at least six years of study to qualify as a clinical psychologist. Already in the first year, students get to practice interacting with patients.

The research team studied 108 first-year students and randomly divided them into two groups. 

One group followed regular teaching, which in the first year mainly consists of theoretical, foundational courses. In addition to the regular curriculum, the other group got to sit in on weekly therapy sessions over a period of 10 weeks.

“We found that the students who had the opportunity to shadow therapists at work become significantly better at interacting with people afterwards,” says Fagerbakk.

A valuable addition

The researchers saw particular improvement in the ability to form bonds with patients and to repair bonds that were at risk of breaking.

The other group also improved over time, but not by much. 

Overall, the differences in skill improvement between the groups were not very large, but enough for the research team to believe this is worth exploring further.

“This kind of apprenticeship learning from an experienced therapist appears to be a valuable addition to the training methods we usually use in the first academic year of study,” says Fagerbakk.

Reference:

Fagerbakk et al. Developing facilitative interpersonal skills: A randomized controlled study of apprenticeship training for first-year clinical psychology students, Psychotherapy Research, 2026. DOI: 10.1080/10503307.2026.2615393

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Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no

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