Teaching psychotherapy skills with a semester-long role play.

One of the most popular types of experiential learning for psychotherapists in training is role play. As a teaching tool, role play has been used in prepracticum (Larson et al., 1999; Woodard, 1999), couples counseling (Shurts et al., 2006), group counseling (Fall & Levitov, 2002), and theories courses (Dollarhide, Smith, & Lemberger, 2007). Further, it is a way for students to learn particular types of skills, such as treatment planning (Osborn, Dean, & Petruzzi, 2004); emotional responsiveness with complex clients (Grant, 2006); assessing crisis scenarios, child maltreatment, and domestic violence (Hodgson, Lamson, & Feldhousen, 2007); broaching sensitive subjects such as culture (Crowe & Villalba, 2012); sexual history and alcohol screening (Haist et al., 2004); and dealing with client resistance (Grossman et al., 2007). Although authors have suggested ways to use role play (Smith, 2009), specific classroom guides have not been offered to those wishing to incorporate this in the classroom. The following brief article offers one model of incorporating a semesterlong role-play assignment for the training of psychotherapy students.