Supervision Essentials for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

In this concise guide, Cory F. Newman and Danielle A. Kaplan offer an evidence-based approach to supervising practitioners of cognitive-behavioral therapy that is based on two key concepts: feedback that focuses on both strengths and weaknesses; and demonstrations, such as role-playing exercises and videos of the supervisor's work with clients, that model experiential knowledge.

Using helpful case examples including excerpts from real supervision sessions with real clinicians-in-training, Newman and Kaplan show how trainees can learn to think like effective CBT practitioners, whether conceptualizing cases and matching interventions to the individual needs of each client, or exhibiting comprehensive and subtle understandings of cultural competency and professional ethics.

Cory F. Newman, PhD, ABPP, is director of the Center for Cognitive Therapy, professor of psychology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and adjunct faculty at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology, and a founding fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. He earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1987 and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Cognitive Therapy under the mentorship of Dr. Aaron T. Beck.

Since then, Dr. Newman has maintained a full caseload of clients and has supervised more than 300 postdoctoral fellows, psychiatry residents, predoctoral students, international Beck Scholars, and other mental healthcare practitioners. He has served as a protocol cognitive-behavioral therapist and supervisor on numerous large-scale psychotherapy outcome studies, including the Penn-Vanderbilt-Rush Treatment of Depression Projects and the NIDA Multisite Collaborative Study on Treatments for Cocaine Abuse.

While on sabbatical at the University of Colorado at Boulder in fall 2011, Dr. Newman taught the graduate seminar on the fundamentals of cognitive-behavioral supervision.

Dr. Newman is an international lecturer, having presented more than 200 cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) workshops and seminars throughout the U.S., as well as in 18 other countries. He is the lead author of dozens of articles and chapters of CBT for a range of clinical problems and has authored or coauthored six books, including Bipolar Disorder: A Cognitive Therapy Approach and Core Competencies in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Becoming a Highly Effective and Competent Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist.

On the side, Dr. Newman is an avid hockey player and a trained classical pianist.

Danielle A. Kaplan, PhD, is the director of the Predoctoral Psychology Internship at New York University (NYU)-Bellevue Hospital Center, where she is a clinical assistant professor in the NYU School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry. She also coordinates CBT training and supervision for the NYU psychiatry residency.

Dr. Kaplan received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since then, she has practiced CBT in community mental health, hospital-based, and private-practice settings and has taught and supervised CBT at Northwestern University and Yeshiva University’s Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology.

Dr. Kaplan is the author of numerous book chapters and conference presentations on topics, including diversity training, cross-cultural mental health issues, and vicarious traumatization. In addition to her teaching and supervisory responsibilities, she maintains a private psychotherapy practice where she specializes in CBT for depression and anxiety disorders and reproductive and perinatal mental health.

Dr. Kaplan is an enthusiastic traveler, dancer, and student of other languages.