User Guide for the Training in Psychotherapy (TIP) Tool 2.0

Ensuring the availability of evidence-based psychotherapy in the community is a critical component of efforts to address rising mental health needs across the United States. However, little is known about the extent to which trainings in evidence-based psychotherapies delivered to licensed clinicians incorporate effective approaches for achieving clinical competency. The Training in Psychotherapy (TIP) Tool assesses how well psychotherapy trainings for community-based providers align with the core elements of trainings that were identified as potentially effective in a review of the literature and discussion with experts. This guide provides an update of the TIP Tool — the TIP Tool 2.0 — based on pilot testing with two psychotherapy training organizations. The TIP Tool was originally developed using results from an extensive literature review to identify the core components of trainings that were successful in demonstrating clinician competency in psychotherapy. The literature review was supplemented with consultation with several national experts in psychotherapy training and implementation. The tool may be of interest to organizations that fund psychotherapy trainings, organizations that deliver these trainings, organizations and clinicians who participate in psychotherapy training, and researchers who conduct psychotherapy research. This tool is intended to be used by individuals interested in assessing the extent to which a training's approach aligns with evidence and expert-derived core components for facilitating clinician competency.