Developing Counsellor Supervision

SAGE Publications

Colin Feltham, Windy Dryden

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 1994
• Print ISBN: 9780803989399, 9780803989382
• eBook ISBN: 9781446226353
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Education in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

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`It is a fairly well established clich[ac]e that while supervision is recognised as a crucial component of good practice in psychotherapy and counselling, there is correspondingly little written about it... [this book is] a good step in redressing the balance... It is a practical, didactic and generic view of how to do supervision... giving a fairly comprehensive account of 30 of the formal skills that all supervisors probably use whether consciously or not... The book discusses each of the skills, giving examples as well as practical suggestions as to how to approach difficult issues... directed principally at counsellors, it is a book to dip into when faced with a panic about a specific issue? - Therapeutic Communities

Supervision is a professional and ethical necessity for all counsellors, providing them with consultative and supportive aid while protecting clients from potential abuse - yet relatively little has been written on the subject. This volume aims to redress that balance.

Encouraging, yet sensitive to the difficult issues that frequently arise in supervision, the book contains practical suggestions, plus useful appendices, to help practising and trainee supervisors develop and enhance the skills they need to be successful in their work. The authors cover such key areas as creating a supervisory alliance, fostering the supervisory relationship, the use of tape-recording, highlighting supervisees? strengths and weaknesses, and protecting the client and counsellor.

Appendices

1	Presenting a client for supervision

Presenting a client for supervision – some frameworks for supervision and case study.

1.	Identification
	1.1	A first name only. Gender. Age group/life stage.
	1.2	Your first impressions, physical appearance.
2.	Antecedents
	2.1	Contact. How the client came to see you, e.g. self-referred.
	2.2	Context/location, e.g. agency, private practice, hospital clinic.
	2.3	Pre-contact information. What you knew about the client before you first met. How you used this information. Any existing relationship or previous contact with the client and possible implications.
3.	Presenting Problem and Contract
	3.1	Summary of the client’s presenting problem.
	3.2	Your initial assessment. Duration of problem. Precipitating factors (i.e. why the client came at this point). Current conflicts or issues.
	3.3	Contract. Frequency, length and number of sessions. Initial plan.
4.	Questions for Supervision
	4.1	Key question(s) or issues you want to discuss in supervision.
5.	Focus on Content
	5.1	Client’s account of problem situation.
		(a)	Work – significant activity, interests. How client spends his/her time and energy.
		(b)	Relationships – significant people, family and friends.
		(c)	Identity – self-concept, feelings and attitudes about self.
		Additional related or explanatory elements might include client’s past/early experiences; strengths and resources; beliefs and values; hopes, fears and fantasies. Possible implications of cultural, economic, social, political and other systems.
	5.2	Problem definition – (a) Construct a picture of the client’s view of the present scenario; (b) What is the client’s preferred scenario? What would client like to happen? How would the client like things to be?
	5.3	Assessment and reformulation – how you account for and explain the presenting problem.
		(a)	Patterns/strandsAhemes/connections which emerge.
		(b)	In what way are these things important to explore? What theoretical concepts/models or explanatory frameworks for assessment? What hunches, new perspectives?
		(c)	What else, which has not been mentioned, might be important to explore? What silent hypotheses, blind spots? What underlying issues or past problems?
	5.4	Counselling plan
		(a)	What direction or focus for future work? What possibilities, agenda?
		(b)	What criteria for change: theoretical frameworks and assumptions?
		(c)	Review and/or formulate plan(s).
6	Focus on process
	6.1	Strategies and interventions
		(a)	What strategies and interventions have you used?
		(b)	What were you trying to achieve?
		(c)	What was the effect on the client?
		(d)	Generate alternative options.
	6.2	Relationship
		(a)	What was happening between you and the client? Describe relationship; reframe relationship; try a metaphor.
		(b)	What was happening within the client (transference)?
		(c)	What was happening within you (counter-transference)?
		(d)	What changes within the developing relationship over the period being discussed?
		(e)	Evaluate the ‘working alliance’.
	6.3	Evaluation
		(a)	Review process.
		(b)	Consider alternative tasks, strategies and ways of implementing counselling plan(s).
7.	Focus on Parallel Process
	7.1	What was happening between you and the superv...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• I Creating a Supervisory Alliance
• II Utilizing a Variety of Supervisory Foci and Methods
• III Fostering and Using the Supervisory Relationship
• IV Using the Developmental Opportunities of Supervision
• V Highlighting Supervisees’ Strengths and Weaknesses
• VI Protecting the Client and the Counsellor
• Epilogue
• Appendices
• Reference
• Index