Systemic Cognitive-Developmental Therapy: Training Practitioners to Access and Assess Cognitive-Developmental Orientations

Abstract

Systemic cognitive-developmental therapy (SCDT) is a multidimensional therapeutic model. SCDT provides specific guidelines and questioning strategies for conducting marriage and family therapy within a developmental framework, and offers an integrative classification system that can be used to organize intervention strategies from various family counseling and therapy approaches into developmentally oriented treatment plans. SCDT assessment strategies assist clinicians to identify the particular collective cognitive-developmental worldview that guides a family's approach to the world. In doing so, practitioners can then use the integrative classification system to design treatment plans specifically tailored to both match and expand the worldviews of their clients. SCDT questioning strategies can be used by clinicians to facilitate a family's exploration of life tasks from different worldview perspectives, thus promoting increased alternatives, adaptation, and development. This article describes an innovative training program designed to prepare practitioners to use the SCDT assessment and questioning strategies when providing counseling and therapy services. Infused throughout the training are structured activities and simulations aimed at increasing trainee competencies in the diagnostic and treatment protocols associated with the SCDT model. The goals of these activities are defined, and several specific activities are illustrated.

Keywords

family therapy supervision family therapy training gaming psychotherapy supervision psychotherapy training simulation

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