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.     

The business of ivory tower research: Paradigms for university-corporate partnerships

A university research team in a department of Counseling Psychology initiated three university/industry collaborative projects. While studying quality of work life in the hotel industry, nurse job satisfaction in the health care industry and assertive behavior in the banking industry the research team contributed its academic objectivity and research skills to these clients. At the same time the university received the benefit of a laboratory work environment, as well as the opportunity to apply academic theory. Both parties in the three partnerships benefitted from the collaboration.     

From academic communities to managed organisations: The implications for academic careers in UK and German universities

This paper examines the implications for academic careers of the apparent global trend towards marketisation and managerialism in higher education with reference to the UK and Germany. It discusses how university employers might exercise greater control over their employees, privileging research and international publication, and fragmenting the traditional unity of the academic role. The effect is to challenge the values of academic communities, subject individuals to greater uncertainty, competition and insecurity, and influence the shape and direction of academic careers. The paper notes how today’s academic careers could be understood in terms of Kanter’s three forms of career as well as the boundaryless and protean career. However, it argues that these approaches do not address the key issue in both the UK and German cases: the changed locus and exercise of power within the employment relationship. It concludes that, to understand how careers are changing, this power relationship and the context of career in general have to be taken into account.     

'Stuckness' in live supervision: Expanding the therapist's style

'Stuckness' in the live supervision of family therapy trainees can be used creatively to affect their style and expand their use of self in therapy. Supervisors, after clarifying the contract with their trainees, need to examine how their therapeutic style is constrained by personal qualities. These personal constraints may be related to generic difficulties in their personal, professional and cultural context. These include anxieties generated by the situation oflive supervision, or learning to increase stress to a greater level than the trainees learned to tolerate in their families of origin. Observing an impasse that is influenced by these qualities, the supervisor, who also analyses his or her part in the process, can change the supervisory relationship.     

A supervision approach for teaching structural/strategic therapy in a limited setting

Many counselors are currently undergoing a Kuhnian paradigm shift from linear models of behavioral problem conceptualization to systemic conceptual models. As a result, it has become incumbent on counselor-educators to introduce the systems concept of family therapy to their students within a framework that renders it meaningful not only intellectually but also practically. This paper presents one way of doing this successfully with master's level counselors-in-training who have no live families on which to practice. An overview of systems approaches to family therapy is presented along with a seven-stage supervision approach for teaching structural/strategic therapy in limited situations where the supervision of live families is not practical or possible.     

The generalizability of reactions to assessment: An application of the Selection Procedural Justice Scale (SPJS) in academic settings

This study tested the Selection Procedural Justice Scale (SPJS) in an educational setting. The sample consisted of 617 students. Four different confirmatory models were tested, followed by an IRT analysis to test the scale structure at the item level in the two different contexts (selection vs. academic exams). Results indicated that the 11‐factor structure is the best factorial solution, and SPJS items were found to be free of DIF.     

Mo(ve)ments in the academic supervision relationship: Ethics in practice

Context: The context of the article is a supervisory relationship between an academic supervisor and a student‐researcher and an ethic of risk within the research and supervision. Focus: The challenges for supervisor and student, and thus the supervisory relationship, and the strategies to move beyond the ethical dilemmas encountered in the research project, within an ethic of risk, form the focus of the article. Discussion: This article highlights the moments when a student counsellor/ researcher came to an impasse in transcribing and analysing data generated in an auto‐ethnography, and the author, the academic supervisor's responses to these difficulties. The use of specific knowledge, skills and strategies in the supervisory relationship opened space for agency and movement within these moments of impasse. Text work and researcher identity work was facilitated through the use of particular listening skills and narrative therapy informed questions.     

From the individual to the collective: The emergence of a psychological approach to collective memory

Throughout much of the 20th century, psychologists have largely examined mnemonic processes through an individualistic lens at the expense of social influences. However, this perspective began to change toward the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, when psychologists began to better appreciate the social nature of remembering. In the present paper, we focus on a relatively recent and important evolution of this line of research: the emergence of a psychological approach to collective memory. Using an epidemiological approach to collective memory, we attempt to distil the extant and relevant psychological research and focus on how (collective) memories transmit, converge, and remain stable over time while considering the bidirectional relationship between collective memory and a mnemonic community's identity. We conclude with a discussion of research areas that psychologists should examine moving forward, which will ultimately provide a more holistic understanding of how collective memories emerge, remain stable, and/or change over time.     

The correlates of phone-in frequency, duration and the number of suggesdtions made in live supervision

The relationship between the parameters of live supervisory phone-ins and particular supervisory and therapy processes were examined in this study. The frequency of phone-ins and the number of suggestions made by supervisors were associated with specific therapist, supervisor and client behaviours. Less frequent phone-ins (five or fewer per session) were associated with greater client cooperation, greater supervisor collaboration and, surprisingly, less therapist collaboration with clients. There was also a trend for client cooperation to occur more frequently following phone-ins in which four or more suggestions were made. The duration of phone-in events was not significantly associated with the supervisory and therapy processes examined in this study.     

Constructing a story to live by: Ethics,emotions and academic practice in the context of climate change

Starting from the concept of the narrative-self, this paper explores the everyday ethics of research and academic practice as seen through the storied-experiences of two women who have chosen their careers through their desire to contribute meaningfully to the resolution of environmental issues. Selves are embedded in language, in relationships, in societies, in places and in ecologies. However, selves are also co-constructed in dialogue between teller and listener or writer and reader. In the intersubjective space opened up through dialogue lies the potential for change at both personal and societal levels. Enacting a narrative ethics of reading and writing that draws on counselling practices, this paper brings my own affective, embodied story into dialogue with the published memoir of Alison Watt. As we both struggle to find stories we can live by within the contexts of specific academic and research communities we begin to challenge the narratives and discourses that dominate our respective fields of field biology and human geography. The emotional and embodied practice of narrative ethics is offered as one possible response to the overemphasis on technical rationality within our society and its institutions. I argue that the development of practical wisdom (phronesis) is essential to addressing issues such as climate change, which are not simply technical problems but are fundamentally rooted in the human condition.     

Divergence between community psychologists in academic and nonacademic settings: A closer look at the implications

The ecological principle of interdependence has been a guiding theme in our research and conceptualization. For the development of community psychology, academic and applied interest and networks must be integrated in ways which value the views and resources of both groups. This is the focus of Kelly's (1984) remarks. The dynamic interplay of ideas, data, and practices is likely to facilitate the collaboration between researchers and setting inhabitants which Trickett (1984) describes as the distinctive quality of community psychology. Common pathways of information exchange, joint responsibility for training future members of the field, and mutually enhancing role relationships are needed. Current channels of communication provide little ease of access or incentives for participation by psychologists in nonacademic settings. It thus becomes the reponsibility of all concerned community psychologists to use their organizational skills to redress this harmful imbalance (Kelly, 1984). For this to occur, however, we must take the initial steps of frankly recognizing differences in our folkways and organizational constraints, while also emphasizing our common values and assets. The largest threat to the field is external constraints from university and clinical service settings on the work that represents community psychology (Elias et al., 1984). If we are dividedor uninformed in the face of these environmental presses, we will never create the adaptive niche that community psychology needs to survive.     

In-home treatment for families in crisis and its supervision: A systemic multi-level approach

The author discusses his experience with a five-phase model which built on congruency at all systemic levels of in-home family treatment and its supervision. Five phases are presented, as well as the group process during supervision. In-home family treatment confronts the family helper with different tasks in each phase of the treatment process and with different expectations within the professional network and the institutional context.The author's work as a supervisor and trainer of in-home family treatment was made possible by Diakonisches Werk Hannover. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Heike Müller, Claudia Eckert, and all their colleagues for their trust and support, to Winiger Beuse for his professional friendship, and most importantly to Dr. Carole Gammer and Prof. Dr. Martin Kirschenbaum for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Thank you Sandy and Susan. In this article the German expression Sozialpädagogischer/r Familienhelfer/in is translated into family helper. In Hannover, as in many other German cities, family helpers are graduate social workers. Family therapy training is not obligatory but appreciated.     

The relationship between abusive supervision,distributive justice and job satisfaction: A substitutes for leadership approach

IntroductionRecently, interest in abusive supervision has grown (Tepper, 2007). However, little is still known about organizational factors that can reduce the adverse effects of abusive supervision.ObjectiveBased on a substitute for leadership perspective (Kerr & Jermier, 1978), we predict that job resources adequacy and role clarity act as buffers in the negative relationship between abusive supervision, distributive justice and job satisfaction.MethodA sample of 253 employees from a City Hall was used to test our hypotheses.ResultsWe found that abusive supervision was significant and negatively related to distributive justice when job resources adequacy and role clarity were low, but not when job resources adequacy and role clarity were high, with consequences for job satisfaction.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that job resources adequacy and role clarity can reduce the negative impact of abusive supervision, which then lessens distributive unfairness perceptions and job dissatisfaction.     

A theory-based approach to teaching young children about health: A recipe for understanding

The theory-theory account of conceptual development posits that children's concepts are integrated into theories. Concept learning studies have documented the central role that theories play in children's learning of experimenter-defined categories, but have yet to extensively examine complex, real-world concepts such as health. The present study examined whether providing young children with coherent and causally-related information in a theory-based lesson would facilitate their learning about the concept of health. This study used a pre-test/lesson/post-test design, plus a five month follow-up. Children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: theory (i.e., 20 children received a theory-based lesson); nontheory (i.e., 20 children received a nontheory-based lesson); and control (i.e., 20 children received no lesson). Overall, the results showed that children in the theory condition had a more accurate conception of health than children in the nontheory and control conditions, suggesting the importance of theories in children's learning of complex, real-world concepts.     

From the stage to the laboratory: magicians, psychologists, and the science of illusion

In 1894, French psychologist Alfred Binet published an article on the psychology of conjuring. By observing five magicians perform in his laboratory, he was hoping to gain a better understanding of the psychological processes responsible for inducing illusions in an audience. This article focuses on the subjects of these experiments and their world. It attempts to explain why five men belonging to a profession in which secrecy was vital agreed to enter the laboratory and reveal their tricks. It argues that magicians saw themselves as men of science and that, by entering Binet's laboratory, they were responding to an opportunity to participate in a world to which they wished to belong.     

Engineering the just war: Examination of an approach to teaching engineering ethics

The efficiency of engineering applied to civilian projects sometimes threatens to run away with the social agenda, but in military applications, engineering often adds a devastating sleekness to the inevitable destruction of life. The relative crudeness of terrorism (e.g., 9/11) leaves a stark after-image, which belies the comparative insignificance of random (as opposed to orchestrated) belligerence. Just as engineering dwarfs the bricolage of vernacular design—moving us past the appreciation of brush-strokes, so to speak—the scale of engineered destruction makes it difficult to focus on the charred remains of individual lives. Engineers need to guard against the inappropriate military subsumption of their effort. Fortunately, the ethics of warfare has been an ongoing topic of discussion for millennia. This paper will examine the university core class I’ve developed (The Moral Dimensions of Technology) to meet accreditation requirements in engineering ethics, and the discussion with engineering and non-engineering students focused by the life of electrical engineer Vannevar Bush, with selected readings in moral philosophy from the Dao de Jing, Lao Tze, Cicero, Aurelius Augustinus, Kant, Annette Baier, Peter Singer, Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and Judith Thomson. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.