Carrying Jeremy Safran into sessions: relying on internal representations of researchers to facilitate emotion regulation, clinical intervention, and self-efficacy

Relying on positive internal representations facilitates our ability to feel safe and secure when taking risks and provides a road map to guide us during interpersonal exchanges. Although most graduate programs encourage students to engage in research, we rarely link participating in research as directly influencing positive internal representations that can influence treatment. We used a qualitative method to examine how watching videos of Jeremy Safran, coding therapy sessions using his model, and reading his articles on ruptures and repairs influenced students’ ability to self-soothe, take risks, and engage when patients confront them or withdraw. Results revealed that students often thought of Jeremy Safran and his colleagues during a session and recalled how he addressed ruptures in the videos they watched. When they were anxious during a session, they reported relying on the video coding training to facilitate emotion regulation during sessions. Having the research experience increased their clinical skills and overall clinical self-efficacy. Implications of our findings and future recommendations are discussed.