Training Public Sector Clinicians in Competency-Based Clinical Supervision: Methods,Curriculum, and Lessons Learned

This article describes an initiative to train public sector clinicians in competency-based clinical supervision. It was delivered as an 18-session course taught online to clinicians employed in departments of behavioral health in nine Southern California counties. The curriculum was co-constructed by a team of clinical supervision scholars and leaders who then served as instructors. Each two-hour meeting addressed a specific topic for which a training video had been prepared, usually featuring a member of the training team who had expertise in that topic. The second part of each meeting focused on a class member’s supervision case presentation. Those presentations revealed 35 themes; the four most frequently occurring were: developing supervisees’ clinical competencies, addressing countertransference and parallel process, balancing clinical and administrative supervisory roles, and addressing record keeping/paperwork. Participants’ pre-to-post supervisory self-efficacy changes demonstrated a moderate effect size (Cohen’s d?=?.46) for the training, with the greatest pre- to post-training changes being in the use of technology, multicultural competencies (awareness of oppression, bias, and stereotyping in clinical work and in clinical supervision), and contracting. They reported that the strengths of the course included an inclusive learning environment and opportunities to reflect on and apply new knowledge and skills, though they also reported struggling with the assignments and the course platform software. Lessons learned reflected the use of technology in this online program, the importance of obtaining buy-in from agency decision makers and being prepared to address challenges related to the use of direct observation in supervision, gatekeeping, and enacting the simultaneous roles of administrative and clinical supervisor.

     

Correction to: Training Public Sector Clinicians in Competency-Based Clinical Supervision: Methods,Curriculum, and Lessons Learned

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-021-09504-9     

Gaining Customer Trust: A Conceptual Guide for the Salesperson

Abstract

This article applies what the behavioral sciences know about trust to industrial sales situations. Trust between an industrial buyer and salesperson is defined cognitively and behaviorally. A model of this trust-building process is presented and appropriate behaviors for sales representatives who wish to build trust are discussed. The interactions between experience, general knowledge, and trust building are examined in light of possible situations a sales representative might encounter. The findings suggest that both firm and salesperson can act positively to build and maintain trust with their clients.     

Buddy Christ and Jesus Action Figure

Two diminutive, mass produced statues of Christ, Buddy Christ and Jesus Action Figure seem intended as postmodern anti-Christs to offend Christian sensibilities and mock the image of Christ. I suggest, however, that the statuettes have an excess of meaning that is remaindered as a residual respect for Christ as a spiritual guide, whose enduring political leadership subverts religious hypocrisy. An atheistic/Marxist defence of Christology provides my theoretical base to explore the statuettes, the cult of the Sacred Heart provides an historical example of subversive piety and an editor of the Gay Times' supplies an urgent challenge to reclaim the Christ of Faith as a spiritual and cultural inheritance from the religious right.     

Development of the Motivators of and Barriers to Health-Smart Behaviors Inventory

The Motivators of and Barriers to Health-Smart Behaviors Inventory (MB-HSBI) was developed for use in identifying self-reported motivators of and barriers to the following health-promoting behaviors (called health-smart behaviors) that should occur daily to help promote health and overcome illnesses/diseases: eating a healthy breakfast, eating healthy foods and snacks, drinking healthy drinks, and engaging in physical activity. The MB-HSBI was developed through several phases as part of a multisite study on modifying and preventing obesity. A central aspect of the larger study was to identify motivators of and barriers to the targeted health-smart behaviors among African American, Asian, Hispanic, and White adults. After establishing content validity and preliminary pilot testing, the MB-HSBI was administered to a national sample of 926 culturally diverse adults. Factor analyses and most of the internal consistency results supported multiple scales and subscales measuring motivators of and barriers to each of the targeted health-smart behavior domains. Scores correlated in expected directions with health self-efficacy and with importance of health-related behavioral goals. Pending further psychometric support of the MB-HSBI, this inventory or selected scales from it may serve as flexible and novel tools for (a) assessing motivators of and barriers to health-smart behaviors in community and clinical health promotion research studies and (b) developing assessment-based, culturally sensitive intervention programs that are customized to address the motivators of and barriers to health-smart behaviors identified in target communities, particularly those communities whose members are mostly racial/ethnic minorities and/or have low family incomes.     

An analysis of writing in a case of deep dyslexia

In tests of her ability to produce written and spoken language, this deep dyslexic patient produced semantic, visual, and derivational errors, including functor substitutions, and exhibited part-of-speech and abstractness effects in oral reading, oral and written naming, and writing to dictation, but not in repetition of single words and copying from memory. This patient therefore provides confirmation of the hypothesis presented in Nolan and Caramazza (1982) that the defining symptoms of deep dyslexia will be observed in responses to any task which requires lexical mediation. The patient's written responses in all tasks but direct copying were characterized by spelling errors which included transpositions, omissions, substitutions, and additions of letters. A model of writing is proposed which explains these errors in terms of a disruption of a phoneme-grapheme conversion process which normally functions to prevent decay of information from a Graphemic Buffer.