Psychotherapeutic competence: a multi-componential construct

Therapeutic competence is presented as a multi-componential construct, a sort of prismatic image whose different and interconnected faces are: technical and relational competence, sensitivity to the context, self-reflexivity and social awareness. It must be taken into account that if technical competence, the one that highlights the recursiveness between the theoretical framework, the attribution of meaning and the actions of a therapist, is defined within a theoretical-practical model, instead the other dimensions of therapeutic competence are transversal to the different models and are more and more central in contemporaneity. Thus, psychotherapists are today urged to "reform" their knowledge in the awareness that they operate within a context that is personal, relational, institutional, social and cultural; a context within which the meanings of treatment emerge from an irreducible interweaving of processes that take place at different levels in the contingency of interactive action between patient and therapist. It is a solicitation to think about the concept of care, overcoming the current scenario of fragmentation and poor integration between knowledge.