The relationship of introject affiliation and personal therapy to trainee self-efficacy: a longitudinal study among psychotherapy trainees.

This study explored how introject affiliation and trainee self-efficacy (TSE) are related and change during training in cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, and psychoanalytic therapy. The study was conducted in Germany, where psychotherapy training contains extensive personal therapy. Therefore, we could examine the impact of both personal therapy and introjects on changes in the trainees' self-perceived efficacy. In all, 171 participants filled out questionnaires concerning introjects (Structural Analysis of Social Behavior-Intrex) and TSE (Healing Involvement subscale of the Work Involvement Scales) as well as additional questions concerning length of and satisfaction with personal therapy. Seventy-one participants filled out the same questionnaires 3 years later. The degree of affiliation in the trainees' introjects was positively correlated with their self-efficacy. Furthermore, after 3 years of training, introjects demonstrated more affiliation and TSE increased. In addition, the trainees' satisfaction with, but not length of, their personal therapy had a moderating effect on the relation between the change in their affiliative introjects and self-efficacy. Introject affiliation of psychotherapy trainees is not invariant but changes during the course of training, at least in trainings that include personal therapy. Changes in affiliation were significantly related to positive changes in TSE-but only if the trainee's personal therapy was considered to be highly satisfactory.