Psychotherapy Supervision: The Attitudes of General Psychiatrists

Abstract

Do consultant psychiatrists believe that psychotherapy supervision should be an integral part of the training of the junior doctors? If they do, when, where, for how long and by whom do they feel that supervision should be done? In the South West Thames Region we circulated a questionnaire to all general psychiatric consultants in an attempt to answer these questions. We report on some results of our survey and raise important immediate issues which would seem a subject for debate. The major issue is the debate about specialist psychotherapists versus psychodynamic psychiatrists. Although the College seems to favour strongly that psychotherapy teaching for general psychiatrists should be done by psychotherapy specialists, the ‘consumer’ appears to have a conflicting view, at least in our region.