Bringing books back: enhancing the understanding of psychotherapy in psychology students through book club participation

Background: The experiential and reflective nature of psychotherapeutic training is not always captured in undergraduate psychology teaching, therefore, there is a need for educational strategies that provide opportunities for deeper understanding of the therapeutic process. Objective: This article evaluates one such strategy—A Book Club, to support the understanding of psychotherapeutic practice and mental health in Psychology undergraduate students at a private university in Dubai, UAE. Method: Psychotherapy-related books were assigned as prior reading each month, which were then discussed in the group meetings facilitated by clinically experienced Psychology lecturers. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were carried out with students and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Four primary themes were generated—(1) Diversity in perspectives, (2) Autonomous learning environment, (3) Reality orientation, and (4) Sparking self-insight. The results highlight that Book Clubs are useful in fostering deeper conceptualizations of the therapeutic relationship, visualizing future careers in psychotherapy, and promoting self-awareness among students. Conclusion: Discussions centred around books can provide students with discourse opportunities that enhance students’ interpersonal skills and improve student engagement. Teaching Implication: Book clubs can be a useful platform for teachers to help students connect the knowledge that they have previously acquired in the classroom with real-life experiences of psychotherapists described in books.

© The Author(s) 2021
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).