What is therapist competence?

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Adila Adila Profile
Adila Adila , I did Psychology...I'm 'supposed' to know this!, answered

Well Therapist competence. Where to begin?

It's basically the extent to which a clinician or therapist has the knowledge to deliver the appropriate treatment to the individual, for example people with schizophrenia, the clinician needs to have good competence to be able to treat them and to be trustworthy in looking after their patient. They will deliver the correct treatment and I think this is mainly for Psychological treatments rather than biological ones. So drugs for example any clinician can give but Psychological treatment such as CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) that is a form of talking and finding the root of the problem to solve the difficulties the patient has.

Obviously Schizophrenia is more of a biological disorder so biological treatment would more likely be given such as ECT (Electro-Convulsive Therapy) where the clinician passes an electrode in the patient's temple and gives them a shock... This is a dangerous and important procedure so the clinician is expected to know the side-effects and to know what they are doing before they carry this out. Therefore therapist competence is presented here as erm... *thinks* as the clinician needs to know what their patient is like in order to give them the right treatment. This is because one kind of treatment may not work for all patients.

Now if only I wrote this in my exam...

thanked the writer.
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Adila Adila
Adila Adila commented
Clearing??? Yeh but...I don't wanna go to a rubbish uni.
Richard J D'Souza
I like your definition of therapist competence. Yes, the patient may bring their own expectation of competence which may harm the treatment outcome e.g. "I want to be fixed in one session and you are incompetent if it takes you longer".
Adila Adila
Adila Adila commented
Thank you ,and yes I agree. Both the patient and the clinician can..as the clinician could just assume that one type of therapy that is effective amongst other patients will be effective amongst all.

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