Problematic Self-Efficacy Inferences in Beginning Psychotherapy Supervisees: Identification and Management

We contend that a particular form of self-efficacy beliefs — specifically referred to as relation-inferred self-efficacy beliefs — often gets activated in beginning supervisees, can potentially pose supervision problems from the outset and, consequently, is best addressed by supervisors early on. Relation-inferred self-efficacy beliefs refer to what supervisees think or infer that their supervisor is thinking about their therapeutic efficacy; because beginning supervisees often have doubts about their own therapeutic efficacy, they can make incorrect inferences about what their supervisor is thinking of them, and supervision can be accordingly affected. In this brief report, relation-inferred self-efficacy beliefs are elaborated upon, their significance for the trajectory of beginning supervisee development is considered, and some supervisor actions that can aid in alleviating the impact of those beliefs on beginning supervisees are identified. We view it as important that supervisors (a) hold supervisee problematic relation-inferred self-efficacy beliefs in mind as a likely supervision reality, (b) strive to proactively address their possible emergence through supervisee education at supervision’s onset and through including the topic in the body of the supervision agreement, (c) be sensitive to cues that may indicate the emergence of such problematic inferred beliefs during the course of supervision, (d) sensitively inquire about those cues and, if confirmed, be open to discussing their implications with beginning supervisees, (e) fully carry out discussion about those beliefs so as to allay supervisees’ inference concerns, and (f) because addressing those problematic beliefs is not a one-and-done affair, be ready to re-address them as need arises.

     

Psychoanalytic supervision and the larger truth

If one asks, then, what is the larger truth in supervision and where is it to be found, the answer is that it is to be found in the history and character of the student; in the intersubjective encounter between the student and the supervisor; in the secret use of supervision by the student as he creatively searches for himself. However one chooses to define truth or to speak to a theory of supervision, it is important to note that supervision is not purely an educational activity nor a therapeutic one. It lies somewhere in between and therefore requires some unique theoretical formulations.     

Expecting the best for students: Teacher expectations and academic outcomes

Background. Research into teacher expectations has shown that these have an effect on student achievement. Some researchers have explored the impact of various student characteristics on teachers' expectations. One attribute of interest is ethnicity. Aims. This study aimed to explore differences in teachers' expectations and judgments of student reading performance for Maori, Pacific Island, Asian and New Zealand European students. A further objective was to compare teacher expectations and judgments with actual student achievement. Sample. The participants were 540 students of 21 primary teachers in Auckland schools. Of these students, 261 were New Zealand European, 88 were Maori, 97 were Pacific Island and 94 were Asian. Methods. At the beginning of the year, the teachers completed a survey related to their expectations for their students' achievement in reading and, at the end of the year, they judged the reading levels their students had actually achieved. The survey data were compared with running record data. Results. Teachers' expectations for students in reading were significantly higher than actual achievement for all ethnic groups other than Maori. Maori students' achievement was similar to that of the other groups at the beginning of the year but, by the end of the year, they had made the least gains of all groups. Conclusions. Sustaining expectation effects are one explanation for Maori students' limited progress. For Pacific Island, Asian and New Zealand European students, positive self‐fulfilling prophecies may be operating. Future research could investigate the learning opportunities provided to these ethnic groups and the relationship of these to teachers' expectations.     

A Qualitative Investigation of Student and Supervisor Perceptions of Live Supervision in Genetic Counseling

Live supervision of genetic counseling students is critical for ensuring quality client care and student clinical skill development. However, no research has investigated students' and supervisors' experience of this primary supervision method. In this study, separate focus groups of students and supervisors discussed their perceptions of the nature and impact of live supervision. A modified Consensual Qualitative Research method (Hill et al. (1997) Couns Psychol 25:517–572) was used to analyze the data. Results suggest that live supervision is an essential and effective method that promotes student skill development and professional development for both students and supervisors. There is a lack of formal training regarding supervision; most learning is trial and error. Students worry about being evaluated, and supervisors wonder if they are providing supervision effectively. Both samples emphasized that client care should not be compromised. Participant recommendations for improving live supervision are described, and suggestions are made for future research.     

Leading and Learning in the Psychotherapy Supervision Seminar: Some Thoughts on the Beginnings of Supervisor Development

Supervisor development theories typically give focus to growth of the supervisor via practice. But in what ways does the foundational psychotherapy supervision seminar stimulate and first set in motion the supervisor development process? That question is subsequently considered. Based on personal experience in training supervisors via seminars and ongoing reflection about that learning process, five seminar-induced themes that potentially reflect beginning tensions of supervisor development are proposed, and their seeming evolution over the course of the supervision seminar is considered. Points that are raised include the following: (a) the supervision seminar is the first, primary stimulus of supervisor development and sets the stage for later growth via practice; (b) early themes that are identified in supervisor development theories also make appearance in the supervision seminar experience; (c) to best understand the full arc of supervisor development, the seminar as both developmental initiator and intervention preparedness foundation merits more careful scrutiny; and (d) through more completely understanding the seminar as instigator of supervisor development, supervisor educators might be better positioned to develop seminars that most constructively affect the very beginnings of the supervisor development process.     

Client attendance measures in counselling psychology trainees

Counselling supervisors and educators have yet to reach a consensus about standard measures for evaluating the performance of graduate student therapists. Compared to self‐reports and rater judgements, client attendance records provide low‐inference behavioural data partially reflective of clients’ engagement with therapists. This naturalistic study evaluates client attendance data using archival records of 92 doctoral students in beginning and advanced counselling practica who produced data for 771 clients, 3,949 scheduled sessions and 3,186 attended sessions. Providing evidence of the sample representativeness for clinicians, results indicated that the mean number of sessions attended per client for student therapists (5.65) was very similar to that reported in the literature for outpatient therapists (<6). As expected because of structural differences in client assignment, beginning and advanced students evidenced statistically significant differences on attendance variables such as number of clients and scheduled sessions. In contrast, attendance ratios were equivalent across counsellor experience, suggesting that these individual difference variables could be useful for evaluation of therapist competencies related to client engagement.     

Barriers Impacting the Utilization of Supervision Techniques in Genetic Counseling

Clinical supervision is an essential element in training genetic counselors. Although live supervision has been identified as the most common supervision technique utilized in genetic counseling, there is limited information on factors influencing its use as well as the use of other techniques. The purpose of this study was to identify barriers supervisors face when implementing supervision techniques. All participants (N?=?141) reported utilizing co-counseling. This was most used with novice students (96.1 %) and intermediate students (93.7 %). Other commonly used techniques included live supervision where the supervisor is silent during session (98.6 %) which was used most frequently with advanced students (94.0 %), and student self-report (64.7 %) used most often with advanced students (61.2 %). Though no barrier to these commonly used techniques was identified by a majority of participants, the most frequently reported barriers included time and concern about patient’s welfare. The remaining supervision techniques (live remote observation, video, and audio recording) were each used by less than 10 % of participants. Barriers that significantly influenced use of these techniques included lack of facilities/equipment and concern about patient reactions to technique. Understanding barriers to implementation of supervisory techniques may allow students to be efficiently trained in the future by reducing supervisor burnout and increasing the diversity of techniques used.     

PROGRAMMING FOR SURVIVAL: A MEETING SYSTEM THAT SURVIVES 8 YEARS LATER

Effective and useful interventions often deteriorate when researchers withdraw their direct supervision. We tested the survival of an intervention designed to produce effective weekly meetings in a student housing cooperative without direct researcher supervision. Chairperson performance, proposals completed per hour, and ratings of chairperson performance all increased when resident staff used a training manual, prompting checklist, and performance reviews. Eight years of follow-up revealed continuing high levels of meeting effectiveness. This study demonstrates a methodology for the direct observation and experimental analysis of intervention survival.     

Narcissism, eroticism, and envy in the supervisory relationship.

Supervision takes place in a framework of time, place, and duration agreed upon by teacher and student. But beyond the formal arrangements of supervision lie a host of behaviors that express conscious and unconscious fears and wishes that are aroused in student and teacher by their meetings. This paper focuses on supervisors' motivations for teaching, and the ways in which their narcissistic vulnerabilities and their feelings for their students may influence the frame of supervision and its outcome.     

Gender Biases and Therapists’ Conceptualization of Couple Difficulties

In spite of the fact that gender issues have played an important role in many family therapy training programs, little research has been developed to explore the effects of gender and gender biases in therapists’ conceptualizations of client problems. This study explores beginning and advanced marriage and family therapy (MFT) student’s inclusion of gender in the conceptualization of a clinical case. To examine clinician’s thinking, 32 therapists (18 beginning MFT students and 14 advanced MFT students) were asked to 1) view the first 20 minutes of an intake interview conducted by a sex therapist, and 2) identify the couple’s central issues. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were used to explore constructs associated with therapists considerations and inclusion of gender and cultural issues in their conceptualizations of marital difficulties. Results revealed that trained MFT students who considered gender may have analyzed gender issues more extensively than untrained MFT students. In addition, results of qualitative analysis of participant critiques revealed subtle forms of gender and cultural biases. Discussion focuses on how these biases, some of which are linked to clinical theory, can lead to differential expectations and inequality in the treatment of men and women in couple therapy. Implications for clinical training, curriculum development, and future research are also discussed.     

Play in Supervision

Abstract

Clinical supervision is a fundamental component of counselor education training. Counselor Educators play an active and dynamic role in helping beginning practicum students conceptualize their work with clients. The use of expressive arts in counseling has been shown to be effective in creating a deeper level and meaning to counselor and client interactions. This article describes the use of a particular expressive art technique, a sandtray, based on Sandplay Therapy, with students enrolled in beginning practicum. Additionally, results from a pilot study comparing ratings of traditional supervision and ratings of sandtray supervision with students enrolled in a beginning practicum experience are provided. Results of the pilot study indicated some preliminary support for the viability of the application comparing ratings of traditional supervision sessions with ratings of supervision using sandtray.     

Peer assessments of normative and individual teacher–student support predict social acceptance and engagement among low-achieving children

This study used hierarchical linear modeling to predict first grade students' peer acceptance, classroom engagement, and sense of school belonging from measures of normative classroom teacher–student support and individual teacher–student support. Participants were 509 (54.4% male) ethnically diverse, first grade children attending one of three Texas School districts (1 urban, 2 small city) who scored below their school district median on a measure of literacy administered at the beginning of first grade. Peer nominations from 5147 classmates were used to assess both normative and individual levels of teacher support. Normative classroom teacher–student support predicted children's peer acceptance and classroom engagement, above the effects of child gender, ethnic minority status, and individual teacher–student support. Results are discussed in terms of implications for teacher preparation and professional development.     

“She was on my side,and grounded me when I needed it:” Research supervision in the field of therapy,based on counsellors’ and psychotherapists’ views on their engagement with research

Research‐supported practice is increasingly emphasised within counselling and psychotherapy at all stages of training. Guided by an interest in how to support therapists in their efforts to develop research knowledge during doctoral training, this paper focuses on research supervision. Research supervision is a surprisingly under‐researched area. Little is known to date about how supervisors “go about their supervision” (Bruce & Stoodley, 2013, p. 5), despite the fact that “high failure rates for research dissertations in the social sciences have been partly attributed to student dissatisfaction with supervision and poor student–supervisor relationships” (Armstrong, 2004, p. 134). Between 2016 and 2019, we explored accredited counsellors' and 'psychotherapists engagement with research during or after their doctoral training. This paper explores research supervision with these two previous studies serving as the backdrop (Bager‐Charleson et al., 2018; Bager‐Charleson et al., 2018b), together with a literature review into research supervision within social sciences and psychotherapy. Supervision is discussed as a crucial coping/support strategy to (a) link research with practice in therapy work, practically and epistemologically; (b) contain and make sense of the use of transformative learning; (c) balance “enculturation” with critical thinking and emancipation; and (d) support reflective and reflexive development. This paper discusses an adaptive research supervision model, akin to a “holding bond” (Stevens, 2016) which supports the student to reflexively position her/himself personally, intersubjectively, theoretically and socio‐culturally, whilst “negotiating the tension” (Lee, 2008) during a process of enculturation into the discipline, and also fostering critical thinking and emancipation to contribute to new knowledge.     

Early Literacy Skills and English Language Learners: an Analysis of Students In A Title I School

This article examined student literacy assessments in light of students' levels of English language proficiency. The study supported the hypotheses that a student's level of language proficiency positively predicted their DIBELS Composite score at the beginning, middle, and end of kindergarten by utilizing a simple linear regression. An ANOVA discovered differences in scores between native English speakers and multiple levels of English Language Learners at the beginning of the school year, whereas no significant differences were found at the end of Kindergarten. Future research analyses regarding the effects of a student's level of language proficiency on literacy assessments are included.     

Genetic Counseling Supervisor Competencies: Results of a Delphi Study

Clinical supervision is a critical component of genetic counseling student preparation, yet empirically-determined competencies for genetic counseling supervisors are lacking. In this study a modified, two-round Delphi method was used to gain consensus about important genetic counseling supervisor knowledge, characteristics, and skills. Program directors and assistant directors of American Board of Genetic Counseling accredited genetic counseling programs in North America (N?=?33) were invited to participate and to recruit three experienced supervisors. Seventy-four individuals completed Round 1 and, of these, 61 completed Round 2. Approximately two-thirds were clinical supervisors from prenatal, pediatrics, cancer, and adult clinics; one-third were program directors. Participants rated the importance for genetic counseling supervisors of 158 items derived from supervision literature in allied health professions. They rated 142 items (89.9 %) as highly important. Content analysis of these items yielded six supervisor competency domains: Personal traits and characteristics; relationship building and maintenance; student evaluation; student centered supervision; guidance and monitoring of patient care; and ethical and legal aspects of supervision. The results provide a basis for training genetic counseling supervisors and for further research to refine and validate supervisor competencies.     

The effect of supervisor and trainee therapist gender on supervision discourse

The effects of supervisor and trainee therapist gender on supervision discourse were examined in this study. Forty episodes of supervision discourse, with ten drawn from each of four types of supervision systems were videotaped. The systems were (1) male supervisor and male trainee therapist; (2) male supervisor and female trainee therapist; (3) female supervisor and male trainee therapist; and (4) female supervisor and female trainee therapist. The episodes of supervision discourse were analysed using a supervision discourse coding system which showed adequate inter-rater reliability. For supervisors, the coding system allowed a directive discourse style and a collaborative discourse styled to be coded. A cooperative discourse style and a resistant discourse style could be coded for trainee therapists. Two statistically significant findings of considerable theoretical and clinical importance emerged. First, contrary to stereotypic expectations, discourse characterized by a directive supervision style and a resistant trainee therapist style was more common for systems containing a female supervisor than for those containing a male supervisor. Second, for same gender supervisor-trainee-therapist supervision systems, a collaborative systemic supervision style was correlated with both cooperative and resistant trainee therapist styles. This discourse pattern did not occur for opposite gender supervision systems, indicating that a collaborative supervision discourse style is consistently associated with trainee therapist parti-cipation (either cooperatively or resistantly) within same gender pairings of supervisors and trainee therapists. These results are discussed in light of relevant literature on gender, power and supervision process and the limitations of the study are considered.     

Critical Incidents in the Professional Lives of First Year MFT Students

First year MFT students engaged in a journaling project, selecting one event daily which captured something about being a student, including the process of therapy, consultation, and supervision, that struck them as important in terms of their professional development. On reflection, the students saw therapeutic success and professional confidence as systemic products of a variety of contextual factors: transient and enduring aspects of the self and the client, faculty, peer, and family influences, and treatment setting and program factors. Students and faculty experienced this formative self study as valuable and believe that it should be done at the beginning, middle, and end of an educational program and the results shared with both faculty and students.     

The impact of supervisors' cognitive styles on the quality of research supervision in management education

Background: An aspect of teaching and learning that has been seriously overlooked in higher education is the process of research supervision. High failure rates for research dissertations in the social sciences have been partly attributed to student dissatisfaction with supervision and poor student‐supervisor relationships. One personality variable that has been shown to be partly responsible for shaping the effectiveness of supervisory relationships is cognitive style. Aims: The study examined the effects of supervisor cognitive style on the quality of supervision for students undertaking a research project in the field of management education. Sample: Both parties in each of 118 supervisor‐student dyads within a university business school in the UK participated in the study. Method: Data were collected using the Cognitive Style Index to measure subjects on the analytic‐intuitive dimension of cognitive style. A self‐developed Thurstone attitude scale was used to measure students' perceptions of the quality of supervision. The scale's validity was assured by making extensive use of subjects' (N = 100) judgments from the population of interest in the scale's development. A second parallel scale was developed to test the instrument's reliability characteristics. Results: Findings revealed that students perceived the quality of supervision to increase significantly with the degree to which supervisors were analytic in their cognitive style. Students whose supervisors were more analytic also achieved significantly higher grades for their dissertations. Conclusions: Whilst there may be many factors influencing interpersonal relationships of this nature, this study demonstrated the potential relevance of cognitive style, which may prove to be a fertile area for further investigation.     

Math Talk and Student Strategy Trajectories: The Case of Two First Grade Classrooms

This study investigated different math-talk facilitations, and conceptualized the teachers' talk moves for productive student mathematics discussions. Our findings suggest that students' strategy development is supported by talk moves coordinating a wide range of student strategies, representations and discussions that are at a process-level and maintain student ownership of ideas, and transitional strategies that connect students' beginning ideas with target strategies.     

Transference-Love and Institutional Involvement in a Case of Psychotherapy Supervision

Transference-love in supervision remains a relatively unexplored subject in psychotherapy. This article describes and analyzes an incident of the supervision of a student whose dress code raised a question regarding the existence of transference-love. The role of the institution in maintaining a protective envelope is shown to be significant in the satisfactory resolution of what appeared to have been an impasse. In addition, multicultural and gender issues are examined to illustrate the complexity of the subject.