The therapy-supervision dialectic

It is widely agreed that supervision has an emotional load which should be dealt with in the supervisory relationship as means of increasing effectiveness in the learning process. This situation makes it difficult for the supervisor to keep adequate distance between supervision and therapy. Current literature on this subject offers no tools for this matter. This paper suggests a model that uses some basic ideas derived from Winnicott's thinking. Our model integrates the dynamic forces operating in the supervisory space and can be used as a compass to help the supervisor in his or her movements while preventing crossing the boundary between supervision and therapy.     

A typology of supervision in child welfare: Multilevel latent class and confirmatory analyses of caseworker–supervisor relationship type

Based on survey data collected from 1460 public- and private-agency child welfare caseworkers in Illinois, this study examines the nature of child welfare supervisory relationships by empirically identifying a discrete set of modal caseworker–supervisor relationship types as defined by a combination of positive and negative supervisory support. This study also examines the degree to which differences in the nature of caseworker–supervisor relationships are attributable, respectively, to supervisors, supervisor–caseworker dyads, and agency settings. Results suggest the existence of qualitatively distinct caseworker–supervisor relationship types that coalesce into discrete mixtures of relationship types at the supervisory team level. In contrast, results suggest that little, if any, of the overall variability in supervisory relationship type is attributable to the agency level. Findings concerning the interrelationships among relationship type and caseworkers' job satisfaction and perceptions of their work environment underscore the salience of individual caseworker–supervisor dyads, and suggest the importance of relationship building as means to improve the effectiveness of supervision.     

Supervisor multicultural competence and its relation to supervisory process and outcome

This study investigated the direct and indirect effects of marriage and family therapy trainees' perceptions of their supervisors' multicultural competence in supervision on the supervisory working alliance, trainees' multicultural competence (case conceptualization abilities in etiology and treatment), and perceived supervision satisfaction. Path analyses revealed supervisor multicultural competence to be positively associated with supervisory working alliance and perceived supervision satisfaction. In addition, supervisor multicultural competence seemed to have a negative effect on trainee etiology conceptualization abilities. Finally, results suggested supervisory working alliance to be a significant mediator in the relationship between supervisor multicultural competence and supervision satisfaction. Findings are discussed within the context of theoretical, empirical, and practical implications for multicultural supervision.     

Supervising Mental Health Clinicians in The Context of Complex Organisational Dynamics

This article discusses the complex dynamics and challenges of providing supervision to mental health clinicians working within an organisational context when the supervisor is not part of the organisation and has no formal managerial or accountability responsibility. It considers two models of supervision and their application to three supervisory relationships in an organisational context. It concludes that for supervision to be effective there needs to be a consideration of the social defences in operation within the organisation and how they are met by the anxieties and defences of the supervisor and supervisee. This requires a mixed approach by the supervisor of the technical with the inter-subjective as a reliance on one model of supervision risks limiting the effectiveness of the intervention. The role of the supervisor can enable the supervisee to establish a clinical framework and the necessary environment essentials for their practice.     

The role of empathy in supervision

Empathy plays an important role in clinical supervision. It is the link between the client whose treatment is being supervised, the clinician/supervisee, and the supervisor. The supervisor uses an empathic capacity as well as theoretical knowledge to understand the clinical work and build the supervisory relationship. Often the progress of a case can be traced through the development of empathic understanding in the supervision. The transmission of empathy requires creativity and openness and is one of the major challenges in supervision. By analyzing the different uses of empathy in clinical supervision we can increase our understanding of the supervisory process.     

THE SUPERVISORY RELATIONSHIP: AN IDENTIFICATION OF THE PRIMARY ELEMENTS IN THE RELATIONSHIP AND AN APPLICATION OF TWO THEORIES OF ETHICAL RELATIONSHIPS

Many authors on the subject of marriage and family therapy supervision point to the fact that the quality of relationship between supervisor and supervisee is crucial to the process. However, little has been written about the nature of this relationship. This article identifies key elements in the relationship and introduces a theoretical framework for understanding those elements based on the principles of ethical relationships proposed by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy and Nell Noddings.     

GROWTH BEHIND THE MIRROR:, THE FAMILY THERAPY CONSORTIUM'S GROUP PROCESS

An earlier paper (Wendorf, 1984) presented the pragmatic aspects and theoretical model of The Family Therapy Consortium, a group set up to provide supervision and continuing education in family therapy. The emphasis was on the development of each individual therapist's competency, the isomorphic relationship between the supervisor, group, therapist, and family levels of the therapeutic system, and the legitimacy of the term "peer supervision." Beginning under the leadership of an expert supervisor hired from outside the group, the Family Therapy Consortium has developed into a peer supervision group with a "floating," rather than fixed, supervisory hierarchy. The present paper charts this development and explores the peer supervision process as it currently works in the Consortium. The focus is on the growth of the individual behind the mirror as therapist, person, leader and group member, and on the growth of the group as a "mature sibling subsystem" no longer in need of outside supervision. Individual and group development are seen as complementary aspects of the same growth process.     

Developing a Working Model of Cross-Cultural Supervision: A Competence- and Alliance-Based Framework

Despite numerous suggestions to integrate culture, diversity and social justice issues in clinical supervision, empirical studies on cross-cultural supervision indicate limited uptake of such recommendations. We suggest that a comprehensive model of cross-cultural supervision could benefit the field by guiding supervisors in this task. A working model is proposed based on a foundation of the supervisory alliance and a focus on social work practice competence, integrating strategies to promote self- and relational-reflexivity within the supervisory relationship. The model is comprised of four components: component 1: goal setting to contract on cross-cultural integration in supervision; component 2: active listening for cross-cultural markers; component 3: bonding through the supervisor’s self-reflexivity to foster the supervisee’s self-reflexivity; and component 4: working through tasks for cultural integration in supervision by modelling the supervisor’s relational reflexivity in case formulation and treatment to foster the supervisee’s relational-reflexivity.     

Multicultural supervision: lessons learned about an ongoing struggle

This article examines the experiences of seven diverse therapists in a supervision course as they wrestled with the real-world application of multicultural supervision. Existing literature on multicultural supervision does not address the difficulties that arise in addressing multicultural issues in the context of the supervision relationship. The experiences of six supervisory candidates and one mentoring supervisor in addressing multicultural issues in supervision are explored. Guidelines for conversations regarding multicultural issues are provided.     

Collaborative Approaches to Family Systems Supervision: Differentiation of Self

Many systems approaches speak to the importance of respectful mutual curiosity in supervision rather than linear teacher–learner didacticism. This paper provides an overview of collaborative approaches to supervision in family therapy. It then focuses on Bowen family systems and encouraging differentiation in the relationship process between supervisor and supervisee as a useful approach towards equal collaboration. The authors use case examples to illustrate what impedes and fosters mutuality in the supervision process where both supervisor and supervisee learn from each other.     

Student Unit: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Group Placement

Social work supervision has been traditionally seen as central to social work training. Its focus was the emphasis on the one-to-one relationship between student and supervisor. The master-apprentice model prevailed. It is probably because of this that group supervision is a relatively late and still quite rare development, in spite of the fact that field placement resources are strained in practically every School.     

Safety as a Fifth Dimension in Supervision: Stories from the Frontline

Child and family practice is recognised as a field of social work that has become increasingly complex. While evidence is growing in relation to effective supervision, there has been little research about the attributes of an effective supervisor, or the components of effective supervision. This paper reports on research undertaken in Victoria, Australia, which explored practitioners’ and supervisors’ experiences of effective supervision in this field. Data collection involved in-depth interviews with experienced supervisors and supervisees in order to explore the concept of effective supervision from participants’ perspectives. The data were systematically interrogated using a thematic inductive process, designed to enhance the voice of participants in the research. The study findings confirmed the complexity and centrality of the supervisory relationship, with the experience of a safe supervisory relationship proving essential. The importance of contemporary knowledge, leadership skills, and an enabling organisational and community context were also highlighted.     

An Aspect of Live Supervision: The Pathological Triangle

A model of live supervision is developed that asserts that when live supervision is ineffective in producing change in the trainee's behaviour and consequently in the family's problem behaviour, this can be the result of the formation of a pathological triangle in the therapeutic system, consisting of the family, the trainee and the supervisor. The pathological triangle, with its incongruent hierarchy, is seen as a defence against issues of attachment-detachment in the supervisor and the trainee. The triangle formed in the therapeutic system is characterised by the same systemic metaphor as that presented by the family. Intervening in. and disrupting the triangle is seen as resolving issues of attachment-detachment in the therapeutic members. The role of the live supervisor and the supervisor of supervision is discussed.     

Field practice supervision of social work students: a psychodynamic view on the emotional context of the process and the setting during the client assessment phase

This empirical study is a psychodynamic view of the supervision setting and key emotional parameters during the client assessment process. The supervisor, through reflectivity, studied his own supervision practice with undergraduate social work students during their first field practice placement. By using supervision critical incidents, he formulated the basic characteristics of the supervision setting, and followed it up with discussion on the key emotional parameters of the supervision process. Particular emphasis was laid on psychodynamic understanding of the supervision process and the consequences of supervisor's interventions for both supervisees and clients. The emotional context of the supervision process during the client assessment phase was predominantly shaped by four emotional parameters: (i) the supervisor identifying with both client and supervisee needs; (ii) the supervisor concentrating on exclusively the educational character of supervision by avoiding dealing with student's personality issues; (iii) the supervisor dealing with client and supervisee ‘transferences to the setting’; and (iv) the supervisor setting and safeguarding the supervision limits and boundaries.     

Clinical supervision for psychiatric nurses

Supervision does not represent merely the acquisition of facts. It is an emotionally charged process that touches on therapists' affective problems, interpersonal conflicts, problems in being helped, and problems in helping (Ekstein). As such, it is a process similar to, but not the same as, psychotherapy. Supervision is necessary for continued professional growth, no matter how skilled the nurse may be. Other mental health disciplines have long accepted supervision as an essential component of professional work. A number of methods can be used to review the therapist's work, including case material discussion, conjoint interviewing, direct observation, and review of mechanical recordings. This can be done individually, in groups, or among peers. A supervisor can be a senior clinician from any of the mental health disciplines. The nurse should not be limited to receiving supervision only from other nurses. Periodic evaluations of the supervisory relationship as well as the therapist's skills are recommended. Supervision is a valuable tool that the nurse therapist should use fully to develop the professional self.     

On Parallel Process in Social Work Supervision

The recognition and study of parallel process in social work supervision offers both the social work supervisor and supervisee a rich learning opportunity at the moment when an impasse seems unworkable. The parallel process is an unconscious replication in the supervisory session of therapeutic difficulties which a supervisee has with a client. This replication may originate with the supervisor unwittingly modeling behavior that is then taken by the social worker into the therapeutic interaction with the client. This paper reviews the need for social workers to grasp the dynamics of the parallel process, discusses the literature for the historical development of the phenomenon, addresses supervisory methods that will uncover the process, and illustrates the supervisor's stages of exploration and modeling in addressing the parallel process.     

Maintaining front-line workers in child protection: a case for refocusing supervision

This paper suggests that a refocusing of supervision be seen as one possible strategy for lowering high attrition rates among child protection workers. Research findings from a qualitative study undertaken in two rural regions in the State of Victoria, Australia illustrate that the current model of supervision gives insufficient attention to the emotional intrusiveness of the work, to building resilience in workers and the implications of adult learning theory. An argument is made for a refocusing of supervision which moves beyond task, encompassing much of what is already known from the supervision literature. The supervisor can be thought of as a messenger who must send and receive messages to and from workers. What message is sent and how supervisors respond to what they receive are critical if the objective is to retain front-line staff. Critically, the supervisor must affirm both the merit and necessity of exploring the impact of feelings and thoughts on action and perception. A key message for supervisors to deliver is the value of individual workers to the organization, leading to increased self-esteem and self-efficacy. The paper also argues for adult learning via reflective supervision. This change to supervision involves a fundamental shift in organizational priorities and an acceptance throughout of the impact of anxiety on all those working in this field. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self awareness of the supervisor in supervision

Teaching self awareness is an important and sensitive task in the supervision of the clinical casework student. However, lack of self awareness on the part of the supervisor may lead to a serious impaction of this learning process, and unfortunately, there is no institutionalized process for reviewing lack of supervisory self awareness as there is for students. Some occasions in which problems in supervisory self awareness are likely to occur are: the supervisor who has difficulty in responding appropriately to the student's dependency demands in supervision, responding either by withdrawing from the student or being overprotective of him; the supervisor who is threatened by students whose character styles are very different from his own; and the supervisor who views client behavior from the perspective of a value system very different from the student's.     

Examining the role of parental factors on depression among Urban African American youth living in public housing

This study examined the potential risk and protective parental factors associated with depression among African American youth living in public housing. Utilizing a community-based participatory research approach, 239 African-American youth surveys were collected during 2013–2014 in two urban public housing developments with low socioeconomic profiles. Over half (52.3%) of the sample was in high school and female (58%). 65.3% reported living with their mother while 38% reported being employed. Bivariate analysis revealed significant correlations between depression and maternal substance abuse, paternal monitoring, parent-child relationship, and family time. Results from the regression analyses indicated that higher depression scores were significantly associated with youth who reported poor parent-child relationships, low levels of paternal supervision and high levels of maternal drug abuse. These findings provide support for claims about the importance of parent-child relationship and paternal monitoring as a protective factor for depressive symptoms, particularly during adolescence. Moreover, findings suggest that interventions which are targeted towards urban African American youth should address parental factors as a pathway to decrease depression among this population.