Seeing the New Through the Familiar: How Previous Professional Training Shapes the Early Stages of Learning Mentalization‐Based Therapy in Child Mental Health Services in the
UK
Yasmin Broersma Lamouini, Polly Casey, Nick Midgley ABSTRACT
Introduction
Many mental health practitioners train in multiple psychotherapy modalities throughout their careers. However, research has largely ignored how prior training in one modality affects the learning of a new one. This gap leaves us with a limited understanding of how practitioners with prior training in other modalities experience learning a new psychotherapy modality and how to design and deliver training that optimises learning in light of prior training. Therefore, this qualitative study investigated how practitioners' prior training influenced their initial experience of learning a new psychotherapy modality, Mentalization‐Based Therapy (MBT) for children.
Methods
Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 11 practitioners with prior professional training in other modalities to explore their early experience of learning MBT and how prior training influenced this process. Interviews were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA).
Results
The analysis produced three themes related to the role of prior professional training: (1) seeing MBT through the lens of prior therapeutic knowledge; (2) prior training shapes what is experienced as difficult; and (3) recalibrating prior therapeutic knowledge through guided practice.
Discussion
Learning a new therapy modality is an active process of reorganising previous therapeutic knowledge. Previous training functions as both a resource and a source of challenge, depending on the degree of alignment between existing and new therapy modalities. Training programmes should therefore explicitly engage with practitioners' prior therapeutic knowledge and skills to support learning of a new modality.