Gülşah Kemer, PhD, NCC
Purpose
The critical role of counseling
supervision in counselor growth and effectiveness is considered to be
unchallengeable. Thus, many researchers have investigated the complex factors
involved in effective counseling supervision. However, within a large body of
work, very few researchers have sought to describe the master, or expert,
supervisor. An investigation of expert supervisors, specifically their cognitions/thoughts
regarding their supervision sessions, was considered to be a crucial avenue for
furthering our understanding of effective counseling supervision practices as
well as improving supervisor training efforts.
Method
Expert supervisors’ cognitions
and cognitive categories were investigated through a mixed-method approach
called concept mapping. Concept mapping was considered to be a good fit for the
present study because it allowed expert supervisors to craft the content of the
full study by first providing their cognitions/thoughts while they are
preparing, conducting, and evaluating their supervision sessions through an
online survey; second, assigning those cognitions into cognitive groups and
rating their priority level while working with easy and challenging supervisees;
and finally reshaping the results through discussion in a focus group session. A
total of 18 expert supervisors participated in the study. A final number of 195
statements/cognitions were summarized into 25 cognitive categories.
Results
Expert supervisors’ cognitions
and cognitive categories represented many different supervision components. There
were traces of the supervision models at the cognition/statement level, but none
of the cognitive categories were named after these models. This result seemed
to support the idea that supervision models are simplistic descriptions of
supervisory process; the experts’ cognitive maps were more complex and nuanced
than the models.
Cognitive
categories/areas of expert supervisors’ thinking were Supervisor’s Goal
Setting/Agenda Setting, Supervisor’s Reflective Process, Additional Supervisor
Reflections about Working with a Challenging Supervisee, Planning and Managing
Supervision Interventions, Conceptualizing the Work, Choice Points/In-Session
Decisions, Needing Immediate Attention, Helping the Supervisee Attend to and
Pick up on Important Things in His/Her Counseling, Assessing the Intrapersonal
and Cognitive Experiences of the Supervisee, Supervisee’s Professional
Behaviors, Supervisee Development, The Client and The Counseling Session, Administrative
Considerations, Systemic Considerations, Supervisee in Relationship to the
Client, Supervisee’s Intervention Skills, Supervisee’s Conceptual Skills,
Supervisee’s Reflective Process, Parameters of Evaluation, Supervisee’s
Response to Feedback, Collaboration with the Supervisee, Supervisor’s
Experience of the Working Relationship, Supervisor’s Assessment of and
Reflection on His/Her Work, Supervisee’s Receptivity to Supervision, and
Understanding the Client.
Based on the conceptual
similarities among these cognitive categories, five separate but related
regions appeared. These regions were Assessment of the Supervisee and His/Her
Work, Supervisory Relationship, Supervisor Self-Assessment and Reflection,
Conceptualization of Supervision and Intervening, and Administration
Considerations.
Moreover, expert supervisors presented
more importance or higher priority to almost all of the cognitive categories
while they were working with challenging supervisees when compared to easy
supervisees. Expert supervisors’ ratings also indicated that “Supervisee
Development,” “The Client and the Counseling Session,” and “Supervisor’s Goal
Setting/Agenda Setting” cognitive areas were in the higher importance/priority
list for both easy and challenging supervisees.
Lastly, even though the present
study did not investigate cognitive processing abilities of supervision
experts, results provided preliminary findings for the study of expertise in
counseling supervision. In the same line with some of the previous findings in
counseling and other areas of expertise, expert supervisors’ cognitions in this
study involved self-monitoring, self-reflection, desire to be genuine and
collaborative with their supervisees, and intentional use of
self/interventions.
Implications
Results of the present study
have implications for both counseling supervisors and supervisor training
programs. Supervision practitioners may consider cognitive categories – in a
broader view, the regions of expert supervisors’ thinking – as important
components of their practices while they are working with their supervisees.
Moreover, supervisor training programs may use strategies in their curricula to
trigger these areas of thinking in supervisor trainees’ practices with their
supervisees. In particular, the most notable of the regions were supervisors’
self-assessment and reflective thoughts, because very few researchers have
mentioned or explored supervisor reflectivity. Thus, supervisors may pursue the
chances of self-reflective practice as well as transparency not only for their
own self-awareness and improvement, but also modeling reflective practice and
transparency to their supervisees.
Limitations
As in all other studies, the
results of the present study must also be considered within the context of its
limitations. First, generalizability of the present study results is limited to
the expert supervisors involved in this study. Thus, a more culturally diverse
group of expert supervisors and their thinking may lead to further information.
Second, there may be other potential variables which influenced expert
supervisors’ knowledge and practices of supervision (e.g., years of experience
as a supervisor, their training, and their range of supervisees varied) that
were not considered here.
Labels: Expert
counseling supervisors, supervisor cognitions
Labels: Expert
counseling supervisors, supervisor cognitions
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