Synergy Among Research, Practice, and Training in Psychotherapy: An Introduction to the Work of Mikael Thastum and His Students at Aarhus University, Denmark

Abstract

While the nature of research, practice, and training in psychotherapy makes it possible for them to be synergistic in advancing best practice and continuous improvement in the field, this potential is just beginning to be mined. In this process, the systematic case study has important roles to play since it captures and analyzes the contextually complex, qualitative and quantitative data that constitute the basic phenomena of the field. This article briefly reviews the dynamics of the research-practice-training synergy and illustrates how they are embodied in the work of Dr. Mikael Thastum at The Anxiety Disorder Clinic for Children and Adolescents (TADCCA) of Aarhus University. As a second example of this synergy and as a comparison to Thastum's Clinic, the parallel work of Brian Chu at the Youth and Depression Clinic (YAD-C) at Rutgers University is reviewed.