ABSTRACT

Supervision is widely believed to be essential to the development and maintenance of skills in cognitive behavioural therapies (CBTs). It is a requirement for most training courses and is a component of the training standards for accreditation as a cognitive behavioural therapist with the British Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapy (BABCP 2000) and the European Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Therapy (EABCT 2001), although surprisingly supervision is only ‘strongly recommended’ as part of training for accreditation with the Academy of Cognitive Therapy (ACT 2005). Anecdotally, supervision is reported to be a key element in developing skill and there is some evidence to support this (Ashworth et al. 1999).