An experiential group model for psychotherapy supervision

This article presents an experiential group model of supervision constructed for both group and individual therapy presentations, emphasizing concepts from object relations theory and group-as-a-whole dynamics. It focuses on intrapsychic, interpersonal, and systems processes, and stresses the group aspect of the supervisory process. Its central thesis is that material presented in a group supervisory setting stimulates conscious and unconscious parallel processes in group members. Through here-and-now responses, associations, and interactions among the supervisory members, countertransference issues that have eluded the presenter can make themselves known and be worked through on emotional as well as cognitive levels. Selected excerpts from supervisory sessions demonstrate various attributes and strengths of the model.     

Recognition memory and awareness: An experiential approach

Abstract

This article reviews recent studies that have adopted an experiential approach to recognition memory and awareness. This approach measures two subjective states of awareness in recognition memory, remembering (or conscious recollection) and knowing (or familiarity). There is now evidence of quite a few experimental dissociations between these two states of awareness. These dissociations impose additional constraints on theories about relations between awareness and memory systems or processes.     

Determinants of capacious memory: a process-dissociation and experiential approach

The aim of this study is to delineate some important circumstances where exceptionally good memory performance, or capacious memory occurs. A further aim is to study memory processes involved in this memory phenomenon. In a first experiment, participants looked through two series of pictures differing in number and were evaluated in two-alternative forced-choice and yes-no recognition memory tasks combined in a process-dissociation procedure. Moreover, participants were asked to provide remember and know responses to tap recollective experience. The results as to forced-choice recognition task accuracy and according to process-dissociation procedure estimates were replicated in a second experiment with a more intrinsic contextual manipulation, and in a third, forgetting experiment. In addition to replicating previous findings, the results show (a) that capacious memory is associated with strong feelings of recollection; and (b) that familiarity (in terms of the process-dissociation framework) contributes to this phenomenon.     

Group supervision of groups: a modern analytic perspective

This article is introduced by historical references to Freud's Wednesday Evening Society and to relevant sources in the literature on group supervision. The aims of group supervision are defined: helping supervisees to understand the individuals who comprise their groups, helping the supervisee become a group-oriented therapist, alerting supervisees to the critical task of monitoring and regulating the amount of emotional excitation within their groups, helping supervisees deal with the range of feelings induced in them by their groups, and helping them become familiar with the principles and become proficient in the techniques of modern analysis. Major aspects of the group-supervisory process are delineated and illustrated through the use of relevant vignettes. Resistance in supervisory groups is discussed with examples of the resolution of some resistances. The author's method and style of leading supervisory groups is presented, as are observations on the boundaries of supervisory groups.     

Group supervision and the psychoanalytic process

This article attempts to elucidate the psychodynamics of group supervision of group psychotherapists. The significance of the supervisory setting is explored with a particular emphasis on the frame. The regressive interactions in group supervision are regarded as enactments, which are conceptualized as nonverbal communications that are covertly transmitted. Enactments offer a link between the present group (supervisory group) and the absent group (the therapy group that is being supervised). The relationships between the experiential and didactic components of group supervision are also addressed. Clinical vignettes illustrate the interplay between the present and the absent group focusing on the supervisor's interventions.     

An experiential approach to the inpatient anger management group

Groups that target aggression on the inpatient milieu usually use psycho-educational and cognitive-behavioral techniques. In contrast, this article presents an experiential approach that targets the moment-by-moment experience within the inpatient group. It makes unique use of group-closing relaxation exercises that facilitate cohesion, consolidate the affectively charged material generated during the session, and reorganize patients' emotional/cognitive understanding of themselves and the world around them. These groups also give patients the opportunity to negotiate the affective residue associated with past aggressive acts, and the opportunity to examine the personal meaning and underlying assumptions behind ongoing group interactions. We describe several techniques or modes of intervention. The authors also use case examples to illustrate the theory, technique, and impact the approach can have on its members.     

A constructivist approach to supervision: Some preliminary thoughts

Supervision from a constructivist point of view is explored. Supervision processes with three different therapists are presented to exemplify this constructivist stance. In this approach the relation between supervisor and therapist is seen as similar to that between therapist and client. Thus, a “therapist-centered” approach for supervision is outlined, the main points of which are as follows: The main focus of a constructivist supervision is the therapist, supervision should be centered on the therapist's complaint, supervision should generate a learning context, the therapist and supervisor have different types of expertise, the supervising context should generate alternative views about the problem, and the supervision context should be reflexive.     

What student psychotherapists want from an experiential group

A study of four thirty-week experiential groups, involving two group conductors and forty-one other group members showed that 90 per cent of students' expectations of change were exceeded, indicating increase in interpersonal learning and, over a longer period, emotional change. the culture of the groups was consistently positive and expressive. There was some evidence that conductors had a similar style which corresponded to that predicted by the group analytic method, and that both showed behaviours which were indicators of ‘good quality' therapy. There were substantial correlations between a positive culture and better than expectation outcome at the end of term one, and good psychodynamic practice by the conductors and outcome at the end of the course.     

Supervisory reactions: an important aspect of supervision

Anne Alonso was passionate about the practice of supervision. An excellent supervisor herself, she sought to identify and teach the ingredients of effective supervision throughout her career. Her first book, The Quiet Profession (1985), was about the supervisory relationship and the various influences on it from within and without the relationship, and she insisted that the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies training program that she directed for many years include a required course on supervision. While the usual focus in supervision is on the supervisee and the clinical material presented, supervisors often experience powerful emotional reactions. Sometimes this is parallel process, in which the dynamics of the psychotherapy are replayed in the supervisory relationship. However, many other sources can contribute to supervisory affect, including the personality, background, and developmental stage of the supervisor, the impact of the clinical material, and the setting in which the supervision takes place. Supervisory reactions can be informative about the psychotherapy being supervised, about the supervisory relationship, or about the supervisor. Supervisors need self-awareness in order to identify their own contribution to their affective responses in supervision. The use of a supervisor decision tree of 1) awareness of reaction, 2) identification of its source, 3) relevance to current supervision, and 4) appropriate use of the reaction in the current supervision is recommended.     

Predicting self-injury in BPD: an investigation of the experiential avoidance model

This study investigated the contribution of indices of experiential avoidance to prediction of frequency and lethality of self-injurious behaviour (SIB) in a female BPD sample (N = 71) with high levels of SIB and histories of poor treatment outcomes. The experiential avoidance model (EAM) tested included motivations for SIB, coping style and DSM-IV Avoidant PD criteria. Distinct findings for suicidal and non-suicidal SIB were noted. In partial support of the model, motivations related to relief from negative emotions positively predicted frequency of non-suicidal, but not suicidal, SIB. Avoidant PD traits predicted a pattern of more frequent, less risky non-suicidal SIB. However, reliance on avoidant coping strategies predicted lethality but not frequency of SIB, while self-blaming coping and SIB motivations related to a desire to influence others predicted frequency of non-suicidal SIB. Results suggest the need for investigation of a more complex model of the antecedents and functions of SIB that includes the contribution of Avoidant PD traits.     

Hub Group: an innovative approach to group therapy in a short-term inpatient adolescent unit

Two and one-half years of Hub Group have shown that short-term, ward-based, heterogeneously mixed adolescent groups can work. Backed by a behaviorally based privilege system, Hub Group contracting methods facilitate rapid investment in group therapy, are flexible enough to accommodate change, and provide a meaningful ritual that involves all group members in promoting change for the individual. Hub Group's method of self-rating and rewards promotes objectivity in self-evaluation. The contracts' images are compact, but all encompassing, providing a continuum along which to move in developing greater responsibility and productive functioning for the adolescents. There are distinct advantages and disadvantages to mixed levels of functioning within the same group. The nurturance and tolerance for others fostered by Hub Group is a primary advantage. Despite the obvious disadvantages of rapid turnover, common issues such as acceptance, attachment, and separation are ever present to be addressed. Leadership must be either supportive or confrontive, but always active in these groups. Hub Groups have shown that with the support and supervision of IDTU's administrative staff, diversely trained staff can comfortably perform multiple roles within the unit and be effective as group leaders.     

From the institute to the ivory tower: The live supervision stage approach for teaching supervision in academic settings

Abstract

In this paper, we describe an experimental academic course on marriage and family therapy supervision. The course, an adapted version of an institute program, was taught in four stages, combined a seminar and a practicum, and culminated with live supervision of live supervision.     

An approach to supervision in health care settings

This article describes a flexible approach to supervision which allows for the fact that integration may mean different things to different people under different circumstances. In the health contexts described the clinical mix which was found most helpful in the supervisory work combined psychodynamic, Jungian and humanistic perspectives. The application of this particular mix of clinical techniques is demonstrated with reference to the work with two supervisees. It is felt that the methods employed are consistent with the current notions of difference in counselling and psychotherapy.     

Primary process and peer consultation: an experiential model to work through countertransference

Various models exist for peer supervision and consultation of group therapy. This article documents the authors' experience using an experiential group consultation of group therapy model that relies on primary process to overcome countertransference dilemmas. A review of group therapy supervision and consultation models is followed by vignettes from the authors' experience. Discussion of the vignettes highlight critical issues in group consultation and expound upon the strengths and challenges of using an experiential model.