Supervision Within the Counseling Context, Essay Example

Counseling supervision is an imperative from an ethical standpoint, due to the need to protect patients from the types of beginner’s mistakes that a trainee is likely to make (Aasheim, 2012, p. 35). Counseling is a field with very high stakes, namely the mental and emotional wellbeing of clients: it is absolutely imperative that trainees receive supervision from an experienced mentor who can guide them (p. 35).

The cardinal distinction between individual and group supervision is the number of people involved. With individual supervision, an experienced counselor provides feedback and guidance to a trainee over time, helping them to perfect the techniques and skills they need to excel as a counselor (Lemberger & Dollarhide, 2006, pp. 107-109). A key advantage of this approach is that the trainer can give the trainee and the clients their undivided attention (p. 109). Group supervision is often for trainees who seek to work in groups, and is therefore considerably more complex. The group approach holds opportunities for trainees to learn from each other, and to work together and feel connected (Coleman, Kivlighan, & Roehlke, 2009, pp. 304-305).

Concerning the elements of the process, one important element is captured by developmental models of counseling supervision. Grounded in developmental psychology, these models emphasize the need for a match between the techniques the supervisor is using, and the level of development at which the trainee is (Holloway, 1995, p. 4). Social role models capture another aspect: the degree to which the trainee learns by watching their mentor enact the roles of mentorship (pp. 4-5). In the Discrimination Model, supervisors hold the roles of teacher, counselor, and consultant (Aasheim, 2012, pp. 49-50). Personally, I hope that my supervisor has qualities of insight, wisdom, and compassion for clients, because I believe these qualities are essential to helping people deal with their problems. I think a high degree of social intelligence is also important in this field, as are honesty and good communication skills.

References

Aasheim, L. L. (2012). Practical clinical supervision for counselors: An experiential guide. New York: Springer Publishing Company, LLC.

Coleman, M. N., Kivlighan, D. M., & Roehlke, H. J. (2009). A taxonomy of the feedback given in the group supervision of group counselor trainees. Group Dynamics, 13(4), pp. 300-315. DOI: 10.1037/a0015866

Holloway, E. (1995). Clinical supervision: A systems approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Lemberger, M. E., & Dollarhide, C. T. (2006). Encouraging the supervisee’s style of counseling: An Adlerian model for counseling supervision. Journal of Individual Psychology, 62(2), pp. 106-125. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/