Intensive Psychotherapy Training in Korean Psychiatric Residency Programs

OBJECTIVE The authors investigated the current practice of intensive psychotherapy by residents in the department of psychiatry. METHODS We mailed a questionnaire to 126 fourth-year psychiatry residents in order to obtain data on their clients' sociodemographic characteristics, the settings in which psychotherapy is being conducted, the effects of psychotherapy, the difficulties associated with psychotherapy, the state of supervision and the level of clients' satisfaction. RESULTS Approximately 51.5% of the residents completed the questionnaires. The average number of clients was 4.9+/-3.8, the average number of psychotherapy sessions was 26.2+/-20.1, and 69.4% of the residents had performed insight-oriented psychotherapy. Approximately 69.8% of the fourth-year residents had received some form of supervision, and 58.7% agreed to increase the frequency of supervision. Approximately 74.2% of the cases were supervised. The average number of supervisions per case was 9.2+/-10.5. CONCLUSION The setting in which psychotherapy is conducted, number of clients, and type of supervision varied greatly among the training institutes surveyed. Based on these findings, we expect to create better psychotherapy training programs for psychiatric residents.