Fellowship Application Video Instructions (2)

1. Email your resume or curriculum vitae (to staff@thecouplesclinic.com) along with the names and contact information of three supervisors or professors who you are willing to allow us to speak with about your qualities as a therapist. In your email, tell us why you are interested in the Fellowship and why you think you would be a good candidate.
2. Also record a video and send it as an email attachment or upload it to YouTube and send us the link (staff@thecouplesclinic.com .) (You can use your phone to record the video Don’t worry about the production quality of the video. We’re more interested in what you say). In your recording, please address the following:
3. 1. 1. • What about the Fellowship at the Couples Clinic is exciting to you?
         • If you were offered this fellowship – what would be your biggest hesitations in taking the position?
         • Describe the degree to which you embody and/or aspire to each of the qualities described in the brief videos below:

• • Instructions for the “Qualities” Section of Your Video (Please listen to the recording below)

 

Transcription of the Recording:

This is Brent Atkinson, and I’ve been supervising interns, practicum students, and post graduate fellows for over 40 years. During these years I’ve gotten a feel for the qualities of fellows who do the best and learn the most over the course of the fellowship. We come to look for these qualities in applicants. So, I’m going to describe them for you and in your application videos, if it’s okay with you, I would like for you to talk about the extent that you believe you embody these qualities and/or the extent to which you want to have more of them. For each of the qualities, please start by considering that therapists and therapy graduate students vary a lot in the degree to which they have these qualities, and every person can be considered to be somewhere on a continuum from 1 to 10 where “1” designates people who have almost none of the quality and “10” represents people who have a ton of this quality. Using a number from 1 to 10, estimate where you think you are on this continuum compared to other therapists or therapy graduate students you know. Then tell us why. Give examples from your life and your previous experiences. Or just talk about how much and why you believe that this is an important quality to have. Keep in mind that we don’t expect our applicants to always embody these qualities perfectly. It’s more a question of how much you aspire to these qualities and have worked on developing them.

• • Quality 1 – “All Over It” (Please listen to the recording below)

 

Transcription of the Recording:

The first quality has to do with the degree to which a person is what people often refer to as being “all over it.” These are people who don’t procrastinate. They dive right in. They don’t spend a lot of time thinking or complaining about how hard it is. They just get on with it. They’re good at crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s. Very little falls through the cracks with these people. Others describe them as thorough.

• • Quality 2 – Explain and Motivate (Please listen to the recording below)

 

Transcription of the Recording:

A lot of therapists are good listeners and are comfortable allowing the client to take the lead during sessions. But studies tell us that couples therapists also need to be comfortable leading and directing during sessions. They have to be good at talking to clients about the changes they need to make and even more important, they have to be good at explaining why these changes will be beneficial to the client. They must be good at giving compelling reasons why it’s in the client’s own best interest to make the changes. Of course, fellows also need to be good at validating and responding to reservations that clients may have the fellow’s ideas. And in the end, they must be good at encouraging the client to decide what they believe. But that doesn’t mean they should shy away from being as articulate as possible with the client about what they believe is in the client’s best interest, and why.

• • Quality 3 – “Yes” vs. “No” Mindset (Please listen to the recording below)

 

Transcription of the Recording:

The third quality has to do with what we sometimes call the difference between a “yes” versus a “no” mindset. In order to describe this quality, I need to back up a little and tell you that we believe in therapist autonomy, meaning: If you’re sitting with a client in front of you, ultimately you’re responsible for doing the thing that you think is best for that client — even if your supervisor thinks that it would be best for you to do something else. But that said, some people decide against things before they’ve even heard and seriously considered all of the arguments for and against it. They sometimes decide against it because they think it would be a lot of unnecessary work. Or, they decided against it because at first, it doesn’t seem like it fits their personality. The therapists who get the most out of this fellowship don’t operate that way. If it doesn’t seem to fit their personality, they try and figure out how to make it fit. These people are looking for possibilities rather than lamenting about apparent constraints. They have this attitude like, “How can we make this work?” versus “How can we shoot holes in it?” They’re honest with supervisors about their questions and reservations about any particular idea, but they’re willing to give anything a try that could possibly work. They don’t dismiss ideas proposed by their supervisors lightly. Don’t get me wrong. These people are not like automatons walking around doing whatever their supervisor tells them to do. In fact, it’s important for their personalities to come shining through, especially when it comes to clients feeling connected to them. But when they have an urge to go off-road and depart from established and time-tested protocols, they have a philosophy that goes like, “You know, I’ll give myself the freedom to go off-road once I’ve proven that I’ve mastered the time-tested protocols that have been proven to be so helpful to so many couples around the world.

• • Quality 4 – Courage and Humility (Please listen to the recording below)

 

Transcription of the Recording:

The fourth ability involves the willingness and courage to say what you think or believe, even if it might be upsetting to your clients. But it’s the ability to do this while also avoiding judging clients who disagree. There’s a kind of humility that people who have this quality proceed with. There’s something about their manner or style that communicates, “Hey, I’m just one therapist telling you what I think. Here are the reasons why. It really does seem to me like this would be the best thing in your situation. But if you disagree with me, hey, you’re the boss of you — not me, and I’m going to respect that.” Different people have difficulty with different parts of this equation. There’s two parts. One has to do with the courage to speak up and say what you really think, even if you think that the other person might not like what you’re saying. Some people have trouble doing this. Other people have no trouble with this part, but they have trouble with the other part — the humility part. So, they seem bossy, or they seem know-it-all-ish, or they’re talking down to their client if the client disagrees. If you’re working on bringing these two qualities of courage and humility together, which side of the equation do you think that you have to work on a little bit harder, and which side of the equation comes a little bit easier for you?

• • Quality 5 – Not Threatened by Continuous Suggestions for Improvement (Please listen to the recording below)

 

Transcription of the Recording:

The fifth quality involves not feeling threatened by continuing suggestions for improvement. People who have this quality don’t take the supervisor’s suggestions as criticisms. In fact, they’re often disappointed if the supervisor has no further suggestions for improvement in any given situation. Some people have a hard time with constructive suggestions for improvement – especially if there are a lot of them. These people sometimes seem to have the feeling like, “Oh my God, is anything ever good enough?” Of course, some supervisors proceed in a way that inspires that feeling in the supervisees. But our supervisors here have a philosophy which is: “I’m going to be your biggest fan. I’m going to be the one who wants you to succeed more than anyone else. I know about your strengths. I champion your strengths. And I’m also going to tell you anything I can see about ways that you could improve. Even when this is the climate, some fellows still have a hard time with continuous suggestions for improvement. In contrast are fellows who are comfortable with and not ashamed of the fact that there’s usually always room for improvement. These people are not thin-skinned.

• • Closing Thoughts (Please listen to the recording below)

 

Transcription of the Recording:

So, in the video that you’re going to make for us, if you don’t mind, tell us the degree to which you feel that you embody and/or aspire to have these qualities. Of course, these aren’t the only qualities that successful fellows have. There are other important qualities such as empathy and interpersonal sensitivity. But we’ve found that almost all applicants to the fellowship have these qualities, so we don’t really need to ask about them. In your video, we’re asking only that you respond to the two questions listed at the beginning of the “Application Process” section, and then answer the third question by talking about the five qualities I’ve described in the recordings. We’re looking forward to hearing what you have to say!

 

The Application Timeline

• Applications are currently being reviewed. We will continue accepting applications until all fellowship positions are filled.
• Offers will be contingent upon the applicant completing of Levels 1 and 2 of the Online Training Program in Pragmatic/Experiential Therapy for Couples before beginning the fellowship (Applicants who receive and accept fellowship offers will be reimbursed for the online trainings).

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