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Seven Tasks of Supervision

Jansel Hews MBACP Accred.

Saturday 30th January 2021

Learning Outcome! Have theoretical and practical

knowledge of the process of Supervision

Seven Tasks of Supervision! Research came from interviews with

supervisors where 23 supervisors recognised by the British Association of Counselling were interviewed on their views of supervision, in particular how they saw, conceptualized and implementedthe 7 "Generic Tasks of Supervision” (Carroll 1994).

The Seven Tasks: ! 1. Creating the learning relationship! 2. The teaching task! 3. The counselling task! 4. Monitoring professional/ethical issues! 5. The evaluating task! 6.The consultative task! 7. The administrative task

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Task 1: Creating the Learning Relationship

Task 1: Creating the Learning Relationship! In supervision the relationship between

the supervisor and supervisee has been given prominence, being recognised as the key element of supervision.

! Yet there is a lack of clarity as to the kind of relationship the student therapist is entering into:! ” Will I be an apprentice, peer, student,

friend?"

1. Definition was unclear e.g. "it’s a bit like a mentor?"

2. metaphors were used to describe the relationship e.g. "mother, apprenticeship, elder sister, teacher-pupil".

The "triangular" aspect of supervision involving

supervisor, supervisee and client makes it a difficult relationship to conceptualize.

From interviews, 6 categories emerged:

3. Almost all the supervisors saw the supervisory relationship changing over time as supervision progressed.

"At the beginning it may be more like a teacher/pupil relationship but as it progresses it becomes more colleague/colleague. The relationship changes...as the supervisee begins to challenge more and may become more critical".

From interviews, 6 categories emerged:

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4. Supervisors considered combining other roles eg: socializing, but agreed these can complicate the relationship.

" In semi-formal contexts like conferences I socialize, but not as friends"." I would never dream of giving a client a cup of tea, but I will sometimes have a tea with somebody while supervising".

From interviews, 6 categories emerged:

5. power in the supervisory relationship..."I have a function here as someone who is perceived as being more knowledgeable than the person I'm supervising.”

From interviews, 6 categories emerged:

6. Supervisees should have a choice regarding their supervisor.

The relationship between the counsellor and client is being played out in the supervisory relationship (transference/counter-transference)The “supervisory contract" is very important

From interviews, 6 categories emerged:

Task 1: Learning relationship -summary• Supervision comprises of a professional

relationship characterized by certain boundaries and safety in the form of support and challenge.

• The relationship changes as it moves from the beginning stage, and where the transference, counter-transference and parallel process are monitored carefully.

• There are some marked differences between psychodynamic humanistic schools.

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Study’s conclusion:

• Effective supervision is characterized by flexibility across roles

Task 2: Teaching

Task 2: Teaching! The responses of supervisors in the study

on the place of teaching in supervision can be divided into eight themes:

1. All respondents saw teaching as an essential aspect of supervision. "I do teach during supervision.”

Task 2: Teaching continued2. The teaching role in supervision allows for the translation of theory into practice: "The trainees bring particular problems....and we discuss/teach skills they can use in these contexts......they get more attention".3. Supervisors were wary of seeing their teaching in supervision in a formal way:" Teaching with a small "t" rather than a capital "T" ........ its a sense of play.....we each try and shape responses like shaping plasticine.....I am the enabler".4. Modelling by the supervisor is seen as implicit in supervision. "I believe there is a learning though modelling."

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Task 2: Teaching continued5. The teaching task receded as the supervisee became more experienced. There were indications that sometimes the content of the teaching changed."At the beginning people needed confidence building and basic teaching of techniques......moving later to treatment planning, checking on theory and so on.....what works and what does not work."6. A number of teaching methodologies are used in supervision. E.g. Giving formal information through books, articles, reading: "I see myself a teaching offering frameworks of understanding.....I give a mini lecture."

Task 2: Teaching continued7. Some react to this formal didactic side of supervision:"I would do a limited degree of formal teaching so as not to move too far from the client....If people discover for themselves they retain it, they forget if you tell them."8. A large number of supervisors use role play to teach skills. Another area for learning is through taped recordings of sessions: a strong psychodynamic counsellor said: "to hear a tape I pick up what’s happening and find out how the counsellor really is doing.” ..…continued on next slide

Task 2: Teaching continued8. (continued) Interviewees were either in favour of taping sessions or against it as being intrusive or time-consuming. Some supervisors use psychodrama.........." I don't pretend I know everything I want to be genuine, help them know best how to use supervision, to reflect on what to bring to supervision, what they want and how to use supervision".

Task 2: Teaching: in summaryIndividual supervisors have their own concepts of:! what makes good teaching! which teaching strategies they use ! what methods they feel comfortable with ! …… uncomfortable withA strong sense from the interviews that teaching methodologies adopted by supervisors stem from their own background, beliefs and counselling orientation. ! “Supervisees can be victims of supervisors’ prior

learning and previous experiences........... good or bad".

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Task 3: Counselling

Task 3: Counselling! The counselling task of supervision encourages

supervisees to reflect on their personal reactions arising in working with clients and supervisors.

! Supervisees report: “the most objectionable stance is when supervisors try or become their therapist”.

! Opinions vary: ! Some argue there is no place for counselling

(Altucher 1967). ! Others state that counselling must be a task of

supervision and has a place ( Bernard 1979).

Task 3: Counselling! BAC Code of Ethics and Practice for

Supervisors: “ Supervisor and counsellors must distinguish

between supervising, and counselling the counsellor. They would not normally expect to mix the two. On the rare occasions when the supervisor might engage in counselling with the counsellor, a clear contract must be negotiated, and any counselling done must not be at the expense of supervision time (1988, Section 2.4)”.

Task 3: Counselling! Interviews with BAC supervisors identified several

themes:1.Personal issues are expected to emerge in their supervisees, “ ……as little work as possible, do the least possible. What is the minimum I need to do with this supervisee to help her deal with her personal problem?” 2. Personal issues can affect the client work: “ I have stopped counsellors counselling because they themselves were in such a state of personal crisis that I felt it interfered with their work”.

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Task 3: Counselling3. Supervisors are clear as a body that they work only with personal issues emerging from client work: “You only become more involved with the more personal stuff of the counsellor if you feel it’s interfering with his/her work”. 4. Not all personal issues that emerge need to be brought to therapy. 5. Some supervisors help the supervisee learn from their own personal reactions or counter-transference: “If you are not really focusing on what is happening to you, all that the client gets is the unfiltered stuff of the counsellor”..

Task 3: Counselling! 6. Personal issues of a supervisee are only

considered when they throw light on what is happening to the client: "I wouldn’t accept supervision sessions being hijacked by supervisees personal issues”.

! 7. Some articulate and name the personal issue of the supervisee, and then arrange for it to be dealt with somewhere else: “ I distinguish between private personal development and professional counsellor development”.

Task 3: Counselling8. Some make limited time for dealing with personal issues saying: "I think you need a place to take that to".9. Some supervisees use some of the supervision time to deal with their personal issues if they don't have or cannot afford counselling. 10. Views on personal counselling varied: ! Psychodynamic counsellors said: "I don't

believe everyone need counselling" ”People should only go into it drawn by their

own personal needs". …continued next slide

Task 3: CounsellingA humanistic counsellor said: ”All our trainees are in therapy .....otherwise supervision turns into therapy and they don't receive supervision”. Some supervisors would say: " If I thought they were bad enough, I would say ...go and get some therapy".

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Task 3: Counselling – in summary! Supervisors deal with personal issues of

supervisees as they arise, and only deal with issues to help the counsellor become more effective in their work.

! Supervisors differed in:! How much time they allow supervisees to work on

their issues in counselling.! How far they will demand personal therapy for

those in supervision.

Task 4: MonitoringOf Professional Ethics

Task 4: Monitoring (of ethics)! The professional/ethical task of supervision ensures

that:-! clear boundaries are maintained within both

counselling and supervision! both client and supervisee are safe! accountability is assured and that personal and

organisational contexts are given reflective time. ! Supervisors become monitors, supervisees become

boundary and professional learners. ! In USA, in 1980, 3 supervisors in agency settings were

sued for malpractice because of the actions of their supervisees.

Task 4: MonitoringSeveral themes (from interviews with supervisors):1. Monitoring the ethical/professional aspects of supervisees work is an essential ingredient of supervisors work: "I feel very strongly about the professional part and ethics. I'm always on the lookout for anything that is not at all professional. if I felt people were not keeping time or boundaries I can be very firm".2. How monitoring takes place differs: "I challenge practice I'm not comfortable with. When sexual issues arise it's very important the counsellor is encouraged to talk about how they feel towards the client".

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Task 4: Monitoring3. Supervisors expect the training courses to teach ethical standards: ”In supervising the person when they really should not be counselling, but you know they are going to, so you might as well try and help them. In that case you are watching for those professional and ethical issues".

Task 4: Monitoring! 4. Supervisors view their task as reviewing the

implementation of ethical standards, not teaching: "I ask them which code of ethics they work for and advise them to get insurance".

! 5. Supervisors want their supervisees to know, understand and adhere to professional codes of practice: “I spend time helping trainees look at what their standards are.”

Task 4: Monitoring6. What should I do when someone is not behaving ethically within a counselling relationship?! How can I work with values that differ? ! What do I do when the supervisee should not

be seeing clients? "I would consult with a colleague... I dread telling them they are not suited to counselling and I can't supervise them, but this would come only as a last resort".

Task 4: Monitoring7. Most supervisors feel they should supervise across orientations (psychodynamic, humanistic and behavioural counselling): "I don't think there is only one way of working with clients, I look at the motives of the supervisees! What is happening for you?...! What were you doing this for?! What were your motives?! What were you hoping for?! What do you think the client would be thinking

and feeling about this?"

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Task 5: Evaluation

Task 5: EvaluationEvaluation of supervisee's competency is still at an early stage of development (apart from in Schema Therapy – Schema Therapist Competency Rating Scale)“As yet there is no research to connect training with competence” (Edelstein & Berler, 1987).

And yet, there is a general agreement amongst the supervisors interviewed that evaluation is a task of supervision.

Task 5: EvaluationFormative evaluation = informal and ongoing

Summative evaluation = overall (e.g. supervisory reports) and formal

Task 5: EvaluationExamples of what the supervisors had to say about evaluation: ! "Under no circumstances do I want to be in a

position where I feel inhibited from addressing or challenging practice that isn't good enough to deliver a good enough service to the client".

! “For me to write a formal evaluation would put me in a managerial role ......which would change the relationship, I'd be there in a judgmental role as well".

! “Giving constant specific feedback all the way through is an ongoing evaluation process".

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Task 5: Evaluationcontinued: ! “I suggest to the supervisee, lets reflect on what

we've done and what the learning is that's taken place".

! “Evaluation does involve a power element. We cannot ignore that”.

! Supervisors see the relationship between supervisor and supervisee as making all the difference in how evaluation takes place and how it is accepted.

Task 5: EvaluationOne supervisor said:" I see myself as creating an atmosphere in which the supervisee is free to bring their full work - successes and failures. I am aware that supervisors can be punitive and if that happens it creates mistrust and the supervisee is anxious about sharing areas of weakness. A supervisor must not be naive about the power counsellors perceive them to have. My aim is to make them feel safe enough to reveal themselves and their work, to be able to look at their positives and negatives. One of the difficult tasks of being a supervisor is to balance one's critical role with ones encouraging role, as I do have an ethical role to know how they practice, as I have a responsibility to their clients".

Task 5: Evaluation! Some supervisors have clear criteria for

evaluation: ”I want diagnosis, strategy, understanding the transference, the counter transference, the process.....that is how we grade".

! Others ask for feedback on their role as supervisor: “How has this been for you? How do you feel I have worked with you ?.... and they grade me".

! Taping is a good way of assessing supervisees: “They can report something in supervision and it sounds dreadful, then they play the tape and its really good therapy....I want the tapes as I do not trust their own judgement one way or the other".

Task 5: Evaluation !Others see it as interfering with the

process, which seemed to be the stance of the psychodynamic counsellors interviewed. Humanistic approaches often used tapes.

!Some supervisees taped their supervision sessions for their own learning.

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Task 5: Evaluation – in summary !Evaluation can be either formal or

informal!Clear criteria or by "feel” for the work! It is not clear whether and how the

evaluation task of supervision is being carried out.

Task 6: Consulting

Task 6: ConsultingHawkins and Shohet (1989) named their model a "process model of supervision” in which there are 6 aspects: 1. Reflecting on the client2. Reflection on the strategies/interventions3. Reflection on the relationship between client

and counsellor4. Reflection on the therapists feelings for and

toward the client5. Reflection on the "parallel process”6. Focus on the supervisor’s counter-

transference, his/her attitudes, feelings.

Task 6: ConsultingThe consultation task comes to the fore with more experienced supervisees, and begins to become the predominant focus of supervision when supervisees move from their training into full time practice.

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Task 6: Consulting….Supervision then becomes a professional activity rather than training supervision.

The consulting task of supervision was presented in terms of systems:

! the client as a system! The relationship between supervisee and client! supervisee as a system! relationship between supervisor and supervisee! supervisor as a system

Examples of looking at systems:-

Psychodynamic supervisors said: ! “I work with the counter-transference, what

the counsellor’s feelings are in response to what is happening in the current counselling relationship”.

Supervisors want to know what is happening with the client: ! “There is the art of helping the supervise to

learn how to present in such a way that you get enough of the client".

Task 6: Consulting

! The consultation task in supervision is seen by many as the key underlying task that determines other tasks . One supervisor said: "I have the checklist...I am saying, what is the priority in this particular case? Is it a question of counter-transference? Is that your main presenting problem? Is it an ethics problem, theoretical problem, thinking problem?"

Task 6: Consulting

Task 7: Administration

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Task 7: AdministrationAs early as 1926, Dawson saw the administrative element in supervision as essential:

”The promotion and maintenance of good standards of work, coordination of practice with

policies of administration, the assurance of an efficient and smooth- working office.”

! Supervisees work in agencies, relate to other staff members and with the management within the agency.

! Each clinical setting has its "customs, rules, physical arrangement, and structure".

Task 7: AdministrationPotential problem areas can be seen:! issues of power and the style of leadership! political climate of the agency! constraints on the agency, e.g. finance! counselling orientation of the agency! who employs the supervisor for the

agency

Task 7: AdministrationResults and themes identified in the interviews:! Supervisors are very aware of the many contexts

that influence work with clients: ”The agency issue, if that's interfering with their work, then that's valuable work for supervision" "If you go to an organisation for counselling...the organisation affects what is going on".

! Part of the supervisory task us to: “Alert the supervisee to the wider context, to challenge them to what they are going to do to develop the most effective service for their client".

Task 7: Administration! One supervisor referred to administrative issues within

supervision: “As long as it doesn't take up too much time…I might wonder why they want to talk to me about it, whether there is some splitting going on, do they want me on their side against the organisation?".! A forum to deal with management issues and

agency politics: “They would help supervisees with what is intruding on their learning and counselling e.g: administrative matters, understanding the context they work in".

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Task 7: Administration! Some supervisors are employed by the agency: "I

would clarify my contract and what the boundaries are of confidentiality. I would keep in touch with the head of the agency, request reports and liaise with that person".

! Others don't intervene with the agency: "I would hope we can talk it through and help them work into being assertive.

! Dealing with the agency was viewed by some as treating the supervisee as a child and not an adult.

! Though all supervisors were prepared to view " extreme situations" and might intervene. Some would wait for the counsellor to ask them to intervene with the agency.

Task 7: Administration – in summarySupervisors agree that the administrative task of supervision is crucial, but differ on:! How much time they

allow for it! How much they are

prepared to intervene with the system

Seven Tasks of Supervision