Gender in family therapy supervision

While gender has taken its place as a fundamental construct in family therapy theory, little has been written about gender in family therapy supervision. This paper attempts to redefine gender as it pertains to families, family therapy, and family therapy supervision; call attention to aspects of gender as they apply to training in family therapy and family therapy supervision; and suggest ways that family therapy supervisors can sensitize themselves to issues of gender so that they can be more effective in supervision.The author gratefully acknowledges her husband, Victor Nelson, STM, and Eric McCollum, PhD, for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper and for helping with the idea that men are raised to fix things, women to make them better.     

Working with issues of difference in supervision of counselling

In this paper, I describe some meanings of the word ‘difference’ and connect these to aspects of the supervisory relationship, roles, tasks and process. Describing some theoretical views of the origins of the sense of difference and the significance of this for the work of the supervisor and supervisee, I suggest that, for maturational processes to take place, the development of a potential space is essential. Ideas are drawn from cross-cultural counselling, but are applied broadly to the client-counsellor-supervisor triangle of relationship, particularly the emphasis on the need to address difference and the possibility of proxy-self communication. I give examples from supervisory practice to illustrate.     

Consulting with gargoyles: applying narrative ideas and practices in counselling supervision

This article explores waysin which narrative ideas and practices might influence supervisory relationships in counselling and psychotherapy,and questions some of the taken-for-granted assumptions implicit within counselling supervision. This paper, which represents ‘work in progress’ towards further conversations, rather than an exhaustive study,is illustrated with stories from the author'sown practice as a supervisor and trainer and educator of supervisors.     

Gender differences in loneliness and depression of university students seeking counselling

Gender differences in loneliness and depression were examined among university students seeking counselling. The short-form UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-8) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were completed by 325 counselling seekers (107 males and 218 females) in Israel. Males were significantly higher in loneliness than females, while females were significantly higher in depression than males. The greater loneliness of male counselling-seekers than that of females is discussed, as well as the possibility of a response set. Implications for assessment and counselling are suggested.     

Gender and conversational behaviour in family therapy and live supervision

The association between supervisors' and therapists' gender and the conversational behaviour of four supervisors, nineteen trainee family therapists and twenty clients before, during and after eighty-eight live supervisory phone in events were examined in this study. Clients' co-operation was not directly related to the gender of therapists and supervisors. The quality of supervisors' collaborative behaviour was highest for events in systems where male supervisors were supervising male therapists and lowest for events in systems where male supervisors were supervising female therapists. In systems containing female supervisors and male therapists, therapists engaged in frequent collaborative behaviour and less frequent teaching behaviour with their clients. The quality of therapists' collaborative and supportive behaviour was highest in these systems. The unexpected results of this study suggest that the way supervisors interact with therapists and therapists interact with clients does not conform to gender stereotypic conversational behaviour in which males are directive and females affiliative. It may be that individuals whose conversational behaviour does not conform to gender stereotypes decide to become family therapists or that family therapy training helps people develop alternatives to gender-stereotypical conversational behaviour.     

Running a counselling project in primary schools: The role of training and supervision

The provision of mental health resources for young children within a school setting is a challenging proposal. An early project by Kolvin et al. (1981) showed the efficacy of a number of interventions for disturbed children selected by assessment criteria. This highlighted the gap between mental health and education. A small-scale project operating in inner London utilizing volunteer counsellbrs is evaluated to examine the training and supervision needs of such counsellors if they are to be used to provide counselling services for children and, at the same time, further their own qualifications.     

Exploring counsellor perceptions of the impact of counselling supervision on clients

This qualitative study explores counsellors’ experiences and perceptions of how counselling supervision impacts upon their clients. Data collection combined open‐ended questionnaires (n = 13) and semi‐structured interviews (n = 6). The findings indicate that supervision impacts client work both helpfully and unhelpfully. Areas that emerged as having the most direct impact on client work were the counselling relationship dynamics and self‐awareness, professional development, emotional support, clients not discussed in supervision and the quality of the supervisory relationship. Congruence and confidence were the most direct link between supervision and client work.     

Exploring counsellor perceptions of the impact of counselling supervision on clients

This qualitative study explores counsellors' experiences and perceptions of how counselling supervision impacts their clients. The literature review highlights little research in this area. Data collection combined open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Analysis was phenomenological incorporating participant validation. The findings indicate that supervision impacts client work both helpfully and unhelpfully. Areas that emerged as having the most direct impact on client work were: exploration of client-counsellor dynamics and raising counsellor self awareness, professional development, emotional support and the quality of the supervisory relationship. Benefits and dangers for clients not taken to supervision were highlighted. Congruence and confidence were the most direct link between supervision and client work.     

Exploring the supervision experience of some mainstream counsellors who integrate prayer in counselling

The use of prayer in counselling can be transformational and promote psychological well‐being, but it can be problematic and requires good supervision. A survey conducted into the extent of the use of prayer in counselling revealed that many counsellors do not bring their use of prayer to supervision. The aim of this research was to discover why this may be. Participants were 19 BACP accredited and CMCS approved counsellors who use prayer in their practice. They were interviewed, and data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The data indicate that there is not a culture of openness towards the use of prayer. Counsellors do not feel free to explore their practice of prayer because of fear: of not being understood; of being judged; of losing respect and credibility; of being thought of as transgressing; of exposure by the supervisor; of how the supervisor will treat the disclosure; and of condemnation and dismissal of something that is important and precious to the counsellor. The central implication for supervision is the need to create a culture of openness and a collaborative working alliance where all aspects of the counselling process can be explored with appropriate theoretical consideration and personal challenge, and where the supervisee feels accepted, able and open to exploring all aspects of the work with the supervisor. This prevents unethical practice, protects the client and enables consistency of work.     

Learnings from a qualitative study into counselling supervision: Listening to supervisor and supervisee

This paper draws on the authors' recent experience of piloting qualitative research into helpful and hindering events in supervision using interpersonal process recall with three supervisor‐supervisee dyads. This paper presents in some detail the findings from one dyad. The authors draw on their experience of the research to raise questions relating to ethics and methodology and the implications for practice are considered.     

Some ethical dilemmas in counselling and counselling research

This paper raises a number of dilemmas in relation to the ethical practice of counselling, counsellor training and research and evaluation of counselling which reflect the author's increasing concerns about therapeutic ethics. A number of relevant issues are explored to develop awareness and understanding of ethical matters, though this is in the spirit of exploration and inquiry rather than having definitive answers to offer. These issues include: use of training videos of therapists with real clients; informed consent; how research and evaluation changes the therapeutic process; how sensitive and ongoing consent for counselling and counselling research could be best obtained; publication of research in ways that respect the research participant; and the value and implications of the new British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy ethical framework. Finally, the concept of 'ethical mindfulness' is considered as a creative, if demanding, response to a concern to be ethical in research and practice.     

Gender differences in power and self-disclosure in dating and married couples

The relationship between power and self-disclosure was studied for 20 dating and 20 married couples. Power and self-disclosure scales (of feelings and of accomplishments) were constructed and administered individually. We hypothesized that: (1) Women disclose more about feelings than men. (2) Men disclose more about accomplishments than women. (3) Power is positively correlated with disclosure of accomplishments. (4) Power is negatively correlated with disclosure of feelings and weaknesses. (5) Dating men are more powerful than dating women, but there are no gender differences in power in marriage. Hypotheses 1,3, and 5 were supported. Hypotheses 2 and 4 were rejected. Our findings revealed that there were no differences in power or disclosure of accomplishments between men and women for the total group. However, a significant interaction was found between gender and marital status for power. Dating men had more power than dating women, but married women had more power than married men. Last, women disclosed more feelings than men across both groups.     

Gender and power in school: On girls' open resistance

Drawing upon a Swedish empirical study of gender and power relations in a 9th-grade classroom, this paper focusses especially on girls' attempts to gain influence in school. Typically, such behaviours are reported to be more frequently exhibited by boys, as is almost all kinds of public classroom participation. In the class reported on here, however, girls are those actively contesting power relations and pursuing their principles. This is done through a process much resembling the idea of a representative democratic model. The features and implications of this process are elaborated in relation to two conflicts taking place in the class.     

Globalising counselling: humanistic counselling in Kenya

This paper explores the application of a Western, psychologically-based model of counselling and counselling training in contexts where the social and cultural conditions differ from mainstream Western societies. A group of Kenyan trainee counsellors following such a course are interviewed about their experience of training. The interview data are analysed to provide a tentative answer to the question of the appropriateness in a Kenyan cultural milieu of a humanistic counselling training model developed in the UK. It is concluded that such application is possible and desirable, if it is undertaken as shared and respectful learning between trainers and trainees.     

Gender,status and the use of power strategies

The present study examined the effects of gender and status on the use of power strategies. The experiment consisted of a computer‐based problem‐solving task performed in pairs, where participants interacted with simulated long‐distance partners. Participants were 36 female and 38 male undergraduate students, who were assigned to be influencing agents and were required to convince their partners to accept their help in the problem‐solving process. Status was manipulated by the extent to which partners were dependent upon the participants' resources. Partners were either same sex or other sex. Results indicated an interactive effect of agent gender by status. Men used more frequently ‘masculine’‐typed and less frequently ‘feminine’‐typed strategies than did women in low status positions, whereas in high status positions no significant gender differences in power strategy choices were found. These findings suggest that gender differences and similarities vary according to social contexts. Implications of the findings for both theory and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender vs. power: Self-posed behavior revisited

In an extended replication of Mills' (1984) study, equal numbers of male and female students in arts and science schools were photographed by a female undergraduate. Arts students, both male and female, displayed stereotypically female nonverbal behavior, i.e., smiling and head canting, but male undergraduates also canted their heads more than female undergraduates. Results were explained in terms of the meaning of these gestures and the arts/science effect interpreted as indicative of the greater power/esteem of the sciences. The findings also address wider issues of the meanings of non-verbal behavior.     

Gender stereotypes and power: Perceptions of the roles in violent marriages

Men are generally observed to exercise more power than women within the marriage relationship. One way of expressing such power is through the roles in violent marriages, in which the man is usually the more powerful, violent person and the woman is the less powerful, abused person. This research tested the hypothesis that roles differing in power can explain why men are believed to be high in agency and women to be high in communion. Agency involves both positive traits (self-assertiveness) and negative traits (motivated to master and subjugate others); communion involves positive traits (accommodation and concern for others) as well as negative traits (excessive selflessness and vulnerability). College students rated stimulus persons on the gender stereotyped traits. In one condition, the husband was described as violent towards his wife, and in another condition, the traditional power relationship was reversed and the wife was described as violent towards her husband. On both the positive and negative traits, violent women and men were perceived as high in agency and low in communion. Abused men and women were seen as high in positive communion and low in positive agency, although the abused woman was lower in positive agency than her male counterpart. For abused women and men, the hypothesized results were found for negative agency, but not all of the expected findings were obtained for negative communion. The sex differences that were found could be explained by differences in the perceived physical aggression inflicted by violent men and women.Portions of this paper were presented at the 1991 annual meetings of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, and the Association for Women in Psychology, Hartford, CT. I would like to express my appreciation to Carl F. Wiedemann for his statistical advice.     

Replacing client-centred counselling with culture-centred counselling

Models of psychotherapies and counselling do not develop in a social vacuum. They arise out of and rest on several fundamental assumptions-social, linguistic and cultural-most which are understood and shared by the client group and the therapists andor counsellors. The extent to which there is a congruence of shared assumptions facilitates the process of counselling and/or therapy. It does not, however, guarantee its successful outcome. This paper examines the fundamental assumptions underlying client-centred counselling and argues that there is at present a lack of correspondence between the assumptions of the counsellors and those of their client groups-even within their own culture. But among the client groups comprising the ethnic minorities originating from the Indian subcontinent, there is a wide chasm. The clients do not understand or share the fundamental assumptions of their counsellors. As a result, client-centred counselling is irrelevant and does not serve the needs of the clients groups comprising the ethnic minorities. It is in urgent need of a paradigm shaft. It is argued that client-centred therapy needs to be replaced by culture-centred counselling, in which counsellors can be trained. The paper presents the main features of a model of counselling that is applicable not only to the white indigenous population in Britain but to the above ethnic minorities living in Britain.     

Transference and counter-transference in counselling

Transference and counter-transference, along with the art of interpretation and the meeting of resistances, are fundamental concepts within psycho-analysis. The former refers to feelings directed by the patient to the analyst which do not belong to him; and the latter to feelings aroused in the analyst by the patient. Both are used therapeutically in psychoanalysis, but are they relevant in counselling? As an example of a school of counselling which does not use these concepts in any fundamental way, the position of Rogers is discussed along with that of Truax and Carkhuff, and various criticisms are made. Counselling which uses transference and counter-transference is then discussed – particularly work emanating from the Tavistock Clinic with Bowlby, Balint and Malan as its main advocates – and difficulties in this approach are noted. A claim is made for categorisation in therapeutic work as it can be useful in enriching rather than diminishing a relationship. Counsellors need to be trained experientially to understand transference and counter-transference phenomena, and suggestions are made as to how this may be done.     

Simulation and counselling

Simulations are basically models of social and physical situations. Their educational value and the problems involved in using simulation techniques are analysed, and some possible applications of these techniques in counselling are outlined: these include applications in counsellor training, in one-to-one and three-person counselling situations, and in preparing pupils for such experiences as job interviews. But dangers of “faddishness” have to be avoided, and more rigorous research into the effectiveness of simulation techniques is still needed.