Recording supervision: Educational,therapeutic, and enhances the supervisory working alliance?

Aims: To explore the impact of listening to an audio‐recording of their latest supervision session on supervisees. Method: Participants recorded a supervision session, listened to it and were interviewed about this experience of listening to it within seven days of listening to the recording. The phenomenological interviews informed by the researcher's knowledge were analysed using grounded theory. Participants: Fifteen participants with 0–20 years’ experience, representing person‐centred, CBT, psychodynamic and integrative approaches, and qualifications ranging from student to doctorate formed the theoretical sample. Findings: Listening to the audio‐recording allowed participants to re‐experience their thoughts and emotions. Participants recalled and re‐experienced events which had been forgotten, unnoticed or (arguably) repressed. This re‐experiencing was usually less emotive than in real‐time; but suppressed emotions could be more intense. As participants integrated both these noticed and unnoticed events, they were able to accept what had been unacceptable, gaining self‐awareness, which was potentially therapeutic. Noticing what had been unnoticed permitted insights into many aspects of therapy and supervision, which was more than just ‘reflection‐on‐action’. Conclusion: Listening to an audio‐recording of the latest supervision may be educational for any supervisee; it may be therapeutic by facilitating challenge of maladaptive beliefs and behaviours; and it also seems to strengthen the supervisory working alliance.     

The application of psychodynamic ideas to professional dance training

Concern about the welfare of professional dance students is growing as it becomes clearer that the training is not producing emotionally healthy and mature young people. Psychodynamic ideas and concepts offer a means of analysing the problems of the training and indicating where change needs to be implemented. This paper looks first at the areas of adolescent development towards separation, autonomy, the creation of peer relationships and the development of sexual identity and awareness, and shows how traditional dance training fails to facilitate their growth. The paper then discusses envy and competition and argues that they need to be addressed within dance training if they are not to be so destructive. The paper then suggests that group theory could enable the better use of the dance class. Finally, the idea of the body storyline is used to show that dance training has the capacity to have a creative and remedial effect on students, if training institutions provide a sufficiently facilitating environment.     

Playing for time: A psychotherapist's experience of counselling young people

This article describes the experience of a psychotherapist working for several years with adolescents and young adults at a centre offering weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy. It describes some of the pressures placed on the therapist by young people engaging in considerable degrees of acting out and the difficulties in holding on to a sense of valuable work in the face of different attacks.     

Counselling asylum seekers and refugees: a study of Kurds in early and later stages of exile

This study explores the experience of asylum seekers and refugees in early and later phases of exile. Twenty-five Kurds (mainly asylum seekers) were interviewed in Greece in early phases of exile and twenty Kurds (mainly refugees) in later phases of exile in the UK. Refugee camps in Greece and community centres in London were the main locations for these interviews. Representatives from eight support organizations were also interviewed in each country. The multidimensional aspects of being a refugee are discussed, including models of formulating the experience, PTSD and the cross-cultural context. Key findings of the study include the desperate need among the asylum seekers and refugees, in the early phases, to have the story of their traumatic journey to Greece witnessed and validated by an outsider; the differing experiences of men and women; a change in identity over time; and considerable fear, which was evident in early and later phases. Moreover, all the support organizations expressed pronounced frustration but responded to it in different ways. Those organizations with supervision and support groups in place demonstrated more insight into their interactions with asylum seekers and refugees. Counselling approaches are evaluated with reference to the asylum seekers' and refugees' needs, and the desirability of adequate support for those with a counselling role is highlighted.     

Counsellors' self-perceived multicultural competencies model

This study aimed to develop a UK instrument measure of counsellors’ multicultural competencies. Also, it intended to analyse to what extent multicultural competencies have an influence in counselling practice in terms of processes and interventions.

The study was an expansion of the American multicultural competencies model, which related cultural competence to a combination of three factors: cultural beliefs, cultural knowledge and cultural skills. Results partially supported the hypothesis, which predicted that counsellors would present high correlation rates between cultural skills, cultural knowledge and cultural beliefs when self-evaluating their levels of multicultural competence.

The study's findings present alternative three-dimensional multicultural models that indicated how counsellors perceived multicultural competence based on both societal (e.g. race, class, patriotism) and functional (e.g. family, social norms and groups). It also discusses the correlations between cultural skills, cultural knowledge and cultural beliefs and how they played a part in helping counsellors to further understand their multicultural competencies and limitations. Finally, it is proposed that future research should investigate the possibility of developing multidimensional or multi-axial models as an alternative way of further developing the counsellors’ multicultural competencies models which emerged from this study.     

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.     

Preparing our future counselling professionals: Gatekeeping and the implications for research

Social science research specific to the identification and prevalence of unsuitable students within counselling, psychology, and social work training programmes is briefly reviewed in this article. This area of enquiry relates to the gatekeeping responsibilities of professional educational programmes, to ensure that their graduates are competent to provide ethical and effective practice to the public. Key issues which impede the usefulness of this gatekeeping literature to counselling educators are raised. These include: methodological inconsistencies which limit the comparison of findings and hence the drawing of sound conclusions; the lack of definitional clarity relating to the construct of gatekeeping; and the confusing array of nomenclature used to represent students’ failure to meet acceptable professional standards. It is apparent from this overview that there are common factors irrespective of nomenclature that are associated with students at risk of not becoming competent entry‐level practitioners. This suggests that a structured approach to terminology is appropriate. There is also evidence to suggest that encountering such students is a regular occurrence for faculty, with students indicating higher numbers of impaired students than educators. A working definition of gatekeeping is provided and nomenclature suggested.     

Clients talk about their experience of the process of counselling

The purpose of this study was to ascertain clients’ experiences of their counselling. This was done through use of a questionnaire and follow-up, semi-structured interviews with 20 counselling clients who were seen at a walk-in agency located in a mid-sized city in New Zealand. Several themes were identified and discussed in relation to the literature on clients’ perceptions of their own counselling. Specifically, clients were asked to comment on whether their counselling was effective, how much of their improvement was due to counselling versus other factors, the quality of the relationship with their counsellor, specific in-counselling events that were helpful or unhelpful, and how their counselling was terminated. Implications for practice were suggested.     

Evaluating socioeconomic status bias in the WISC-R

The use of intelligence tests in making special education placement decisions for children has come under repeated scrutiny in recent years. Arguments for and against the use of IQs have centered around the issue of test bias. In California a permanent moratorium on the use of intelligence tests in placing minority group children into classes for the educable retarded has been handed down by the court. One defense proposed by advocates of mental testing has been that the tests are biased against socially and economically disadvantaged groups irrespective of race. According to Clarizio (1978), if a test predicts equally well for two groups it can not legitimately be described as biased. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the test bias of the Verbal IQ as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised in relation to predictions of academic achievement in two different socioeconomic status groups. The results indicated that Verbal IQs are not biased with respect to socioeconomic status. Derived regression equations are presented along with an analysis to inspect the statistical power of the original tests.