My Mission:
Making you the therapist you want to be

What a journey, and how privileged i have been

During the early stages of my career, I had a strange feeling that something was wrong with my training. Despite a growing body of scientific knowledge and and clinical experience, i didn’t seem to be getting better results with my patients. Often enough, i would not know where my next learning challenge was. I found myself reading more and more treatment protocols, theories and tips. Yet despite all the effort, i didn’t sense this theoretical expertise was being translated into therapy session. This feeling soon translated itself into disagreement with peers and professors, leading to a lingering frustration.

In the second year of my clinical training, I was first observed with video recording. I had a strong hope that this would lead to a breakthrough in learning. I was expecting significant insights into my performance, and approached the first supervision session in trepidation. The feedback from my professor was indeed significant, and insightful: “Dan, I can see your underwear”.

And so i realised how much of my performance, how much of how i carried and presented myself in therapy, was invisible to me. So I decided to do more video. With video, my supervisors could more clearly show me what i could do differently. This, I hoped, would lead to setting clear learning goals, and thus the practice of specific skills. But all these concepts were alien to my teachers, and so i didn’t know where to start… until I found Deliberate Practice, mentioned in passing by a teacher i greatly admire to this day. Soon enough i was a man on a mission, one that still continues today with the Psychotherapytrainer.com.

My mission is to make the art of therapy into a skill. To create a climate in which all therapists can become great therapists. To do this there are still many challenges ahead, but also many friends marching with us along that yellow brick road. Through teaching, innovation, research and straightforward common sense, I hope to make a difference in the way you approach your profession.

To achieve this, we will break the art of therapy down into small practicable skills, with a clear learning path, a reliable way of measuring where we are, and an accessible platform for practicing. The Psychotherapytrainer.com is here to provide that last item - to be an accessible platform, available at a fraction of the price of supervision sessions, while maintaining high quality rehearsal and feedback.

Humility, the key to learning

As you will find out, humility is the key to practice. We must approach our skills with the understanding that it is by exposing our weaknesses and mistakes that we grow. It is also vital that i present this project to you with a strong dose of humility. I have great belief in the Psychotherapytrainer.com. I have great belief in the power of AI. But i have even greater belief in humankind.

This platform is in no way a substitute for human supervision, nor is it a one-for-one replacement to practicing with colleagues and friends. It is designed simply to augment your learning, in the realization that this is but a small helpful step on your long journey to professional expertise.

I am deeply indebted to my many teachers who have given me the foundations to construct this project, I hope you know who you are, and I hereby thank you. A special thanks also to Anders k. Ericsson, whom i never met, but have been deeply influenced by. And to end with his words,

Thank you for your trust,

Dan Sacks