Clinician-Researchers in Psychotherapy

Clinical researchers who have an active clinical practice are rare. Therapists who conduct therapy research are rarer still. Why is this the case? And why is the study of the practice often so far from the actual practice? If the practice and research worlds of therapy are to be bridged, might clinician-researchers-professionals who do both-play an important role in this process? A career engaged both with providing therapy and researching therapy is unique. This book combines original empirical work, theory, and first-person scholarly narratives authored by clinical mental health professionals in the early, middle, and later stages of their careers as they highlight the rewards, challenges, and potent areas of synergy they experience as clinician-researchers. This book was originally published as a special issue of Counselling Psychology Quarterly.

Jill D. Paquin is a group dynamics researcher and scholar, a group therapist, a licensed psychologist, and a full-time assistant professor in the graduate counseling psychology program at Chatham University, Pittsburgh, USA. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Group Psychotherapy.

Introduction: a career engaged in both therapy research and practice 1. Sharing wisdom: Challenges, benefits, and developmental path to becoming a successful therapist-researcher 2. ''Research doesn't fit in a 50-minute hour'': The phenomenology of therapists' involvement in research at a university counseling center 3. Reflexivity in science and practice: What do French verbs have to do with it? 4. The psychotherapy researcher-practice relationship: Through a clinical supervision lens 5. Clinicians' prediction and recall of therapeutic interventions: practice research network study 6. A funny thing happened when my scientist self and my practitioner self became an integrated scientist-practitioner: A tale of two couple therapists transformed