When I was in middle school, I played the cello. Truth to be told, I wasn't very talented. But I fell in love with its heart-felt sound and so I did my best to get better at playing. My teacher was traditionally trained and a stickler for practicing scales. She would stand at the back of the room and watch me play, her hands crossed behind her back, her eyes following my fingers, not blinking for a second. When I was done playing my part, she would step forward and give me her feedback, and my goodness, was that feedback specific.
I never made it to the orchestra, but I enjoyed the continuous challenge of trying to be a better version of myself in that context. And there was endless opportunities for growth: expand finger flexibility, increase speed, improve eye-hand coordination. My teacher gave me different exercises to strengthen different skillsets, and it was fun. Similarly to work-out, I found out that I improved the most when I practiced right at the edge of my competency.
My takeaways from this experience:
That in order to get better at something, I have to know where I stumble. And that's hard to do, unless I am willing to examine my own performance.
That if I'm brave enough to present my performance to someone more experienced than myself, like a teacher or mentor, they will be able to notice my learning edge, and they may be able to help me work through it.
And that has been my journey for many years now as a clinical psychologist: To keep learning from my mistakes and to get better.
How do I do it? I ask my clients permission to record our therapy sessions. Then, I examine my performance. And at least once a week, I consult. I have surrounded myself with incredible role models, teachers, and colleagues whose feedback I value. My mentor in recent years has been Dr. Zoya Simakhodskaya, an internationally renowned couples therapist and an EFT trainer, whose guidance has been invaluable in my professional development. Whenever I present my video-recording to Zoya, I know that I am going to learn something new.
How common is this method?
Interestingly enough, in the psychology field the experience of learning by showing one's performance to an expert is not all that common. In different professions, practitioners get used to being observed and evaluated: Athletes have a coach, doctors present their cases to the attending, writers share their drafts with an editor. And in many professions, technology is also used to promote expertise. In 2015, Wired proposed that for dancers, i-phone's slow motion technology has become "an incredibly useful tool for honing their craft."
I have a similar experience when I watch recordings of my own therapy work. Slowing down, pausing, and rewinding allows me to take in more of the nuance that happens during a session, and to imagine different responses I could offer.
But here is the challenge: As therapists, we are very protective of the personal and sensitive conversations that happen in our office. This leads many therapists to practice in private, and cut themselves from the possibility of getting objective, performance-based feedback about their work. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive, and technological advances also allow us to lawfully protect our clients' data. In fact, in the therapeutic milieu, more and more practitioners embrace video-recording as a tool to better serve their clients.
What is your perspective about this?
When I ask clients' permission to record our sessions, they almost always say yes. And when a client says no, I have deep respect for all the reasons behind that choice.
I invite you to participate in a poll about Recording Therapy Sessions: Yes or No? An online survey that I created to learn more about attitudes towards video recording psychotherapy as a tool to improve outcome. I welcome your thoughts on all the reasons To and Not To record sessions from your perspective, and I promise to share the results here when there is sufficient data.
You can check out my session recording policy if you are interested:
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