Abstract
Objectives: There is a lack of research considering how to support trainee clinical psychologists promoting their own well-being; a vital competency for effective and safe clinical practice. This research aimed to develop and determine the acceptability, feasibility and preliminary outcomes of trainee clinical psychologists engaging with a skills-based personal practice programme using concepts from Compassion Focused Therapy. This Compassion Focused Programme was focused around the development of a ‘Compassionate Internal Supervisor’ (Bell, Dixon & Kolts, 2017). Method: A mixed-methods design was adopted to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and outcomes of the Compassion Focused Programme (CFP) for a group of first-year trainee clinical psychologists (n=6) training at a UK university. Outcome measures were collected at pre-CFP, post-CFP and follow-up time points and analysed using reliable change calculations. Feedback forms were used to understand trainees’ perceptions of acceptability and feasibility. Findings: Good acceptability of the CFP for the trainees who took part was demonstrated. However, only a small proportion of the trainees invited to participate chose to, suggesting limitations to acceptability and feasibility. Helpful experiences and challenges of engaging with this CFP were identified. There was a general trend of improvement on measures of self-criticism/self-reassurance, self-compassion, well-being, stress, depression and difficulties in emotion regulation; some of which met criterion for reliable changes. Conclusions and implications: Self-compassion could be helpful and relevant for trainee clinical psychologists and the concept of developing a ‘compassionate internal supervisor’ seems to be useful in facilitating the application of self-compassion to challenges of clinical work. However, compassion can be challenging, and a Compassion Focused Programme seems to have some limitations in terms of acceptability and feasibility. Research implications for understanding how trainee clinical psychologists relate to the concept of self-compassion and ideas for supporting the development of self-compassion are discussed.