Therapists-in-Training: Level of Emotional Maturity Among Clinical Psychology Doctoral Students

A scientific culture that favors the study of psychotherapies over psychotherapists has become firmly established. The present study aimed to reverse this trend by exploring the impact of graduate school on therapists' emotional development. The study compared the emotional maturity of first and last-year clinical psychology graduate students from a self-differentiation and emotional intelligence perspective. First and last-year students did not differ significantly from each other or the adult norm on critical dimensions of self-differentiation, including solid self, anxiety regulation through accommodation, reactivity involving argument, and tolerating pain for growth. These findings suggest that clinical psychology graduate programs are overlooking the emotional maturation of their students.