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Supervision and supervisory

relationship

Oana-Maria Popescu

1. THE SUPERVISION AND ITS ROLE IN COUNSELLING

The supervision is a distinct professional occupation in which education and training


aim at the science-based practice, facilitated by a collaborative interpersonal process. It
involves observation, evaluation, feedback, facilitate the self-assessment of the supervised
and the acquisition of knowledge and skills through training, modelling and solving mutual
problems. In addition, by building the recognition of the strengths and talents of the
supervised, the supervision encourages self-efficacy. The supervision ensures that the clinical
consultation is conducted in a competent manner in which ethical standards, legal
requirements and professional practices are used to promote and protect the welfare of the
client, of the profession and of the society in general. The supervisory relationship is the
foundation of the development of a supervisory alliance.
The supervision plays an important role in all forms of counselling, being essential the
assurance of the quality of supervision.
Both counselling and supervision in counselling are systematic, directed towards a
goal, structured, time-limited, collaborative, person-centred, confidential and active, with
clear borders and an imbalance of power that must be managed in an ethical manner. Both
counselling and supervision in counselling emphasize mutual trust, openness, practice,
experience, facilitating change, building on existing strengths, developing more complex and
balanced application of new skills in the natural environment, using objective measurements
and response to feed back.
Compared with counselling, the supervision has goals, content, discharge parameters
and different flexibility. Several supervisors can lead to better results.
A number of authors have identified and described four levels of interaction as part of
the conceptual framework in the supervision of counselling:
- Level 1 = primary input - the context in which supervision occurs, what brings
supervision, the customer’s impact on supervision and the selectivity with which the
supervised describes counselling;

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- Level 2 = parameters - features, structure and development of the supervision project;
- Level 3 = dynamic alignment - changing the centring on conceptualization of the
case, technique and counselling relationship;
- Level 4 = learning process - experiential learning model.
The most common topics discussed in supervision are:
- formulating the case;
- cognitive, affective and behavioural analysis;
- interventions and techniques used in the counselling process;
- functional analysis;
- applying techniques;
- emotional responsibility;
- setting goals;
- the counselling relationship;
- safe framework for the client;
- ethical issues;
- methods of evaluation;
- safe framework for the counsellor;
- exclusion criteria.
Initially, the supervision is addressing the counsellors’ beliefs in the new counselling
situation, and then gradually will address the methods, clinical processes and case
conceptualization (beginner counsellors). For the ”intermediate level” counsellors, more
attention begins to be paid to the client-counsellor relationship, in addition to the topics
discussed with the beginner counsellors. For the experienced counsellors, the supervision
focuses mainly on the counsellor or the supervision process.
Most authors recommend individual supervision at least one hour per week. It is
recommended that the beginner counsellors take the lighter cases.
Sometimes, the counsellors develop preferences for specific techniques and neglect
others, so supervisors should promote flexibility and consideration of alternative techniques.
An usual dysfunctional belief of the supervised persons is ”I must show the
supervisor how perfect I am in counselling”, ”I must make the right decision otherwise
something terrible will happen” or ”I must always like to do counselling in order to be a good
counsellor”. The supervisor must help the counsellor to be aware of these dysfunctional
expectations which are a probable source of anxiety.
The functions of supervision include:

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- providing feedback on performance;
- coaching and guiding in the performance practice;
- communicating alternative views and perspectives regarding the dynamics and
interventions;
- contribution to the development of professional identity of the supervisor;
- providing a secure base from which to explore the theory, interventions and styles.
Supervision is basically an intervention provided by a more experienced member of a
profession to a younger member of that profession. It is a relationship of assessment that
extends over time and it aims simultaneously to improve the professional functioning of the
younger person monitoring the quality of professional services offered to the customer, and at
the same time, having the role to decide who can follow a certain profession.
The main purpose of supervision remains to ensure the counsellor a secure base from
which he can learn practically to apply the techniques and methods chosen in the strategic
plan of intervention.
The phases of counselling are mediated by three forms of learning:
- the associative learning: during the construction phase of the alliance, the customer
learns to associate the feeling of safety from the counselling from the perspective of
behavioural change;
- the indirect learning: during the technical interventions, the customer learns new
behavioural patterns by more directive learning - psychological modelling and
psycho-educational practical training. The technical phase of counselling focuses on
the problem and having symptomatic specificity;
- the instrumental learning: is re-learning by application by the customer the problem-
solving behaviour in its natural environment. These new responses to situations that
were problematic before, lead to more appropriate consequences.
The integrative pattern of counselling in three phases:
- the alliance-building phase, namely:
o the counselling alliance (Sofran)
o training the customer, stages of change (Prochaska and Di Clemente)
o training (Tanq)
o a common therapeutically factor (Garfield)
o a non-specific factor (Strupp)
o the secure base of attachment (Bowlby)
o a facilitating environment (Winwiatt)

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o authenticity, empathy (Rogers)
o therapeutically communication (Watchel)
o corrective emotional experience (Alexander)
o joining the family (Minuchin)
- the technical interventions phase:
o for anxiety:
 progressive relaxation
 systematic desensitization
 modelling
 cognitive restructuration
 therapy through exposure
 interventions for couple/family
 re-mediation
o for depression:
 social/behavioural activation; pleasant events scheduling
 assertiveness training
 behavioural repetition
 thought stopping
 cognitive disputing
 confronting assumptions
 re-mediation
 implementation by the family
- the re-learning phase:
o corrective behavioural experience
o extinction/reconditioning
o re-skilling
o upward spiral
o self-efficacy
o a learnt optimism vs. learnt helplessness
o family restructuring

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2. THE RELATIONSHIP OF SUPERVISION

Many of the characteristics of the supervisory relationship are identical to those of the
therapeutically alliance. Accordingly, a quality supervision relationship involves a
combination of attitudes, behaviours and supportive practices. The attitudes and the
facilitating behaviours consist of the supervisor’s empathy and understanding the difficulties
and the self-analysis through which the supervised passes. Facilitation refers to creating a the
feeling of ”team” between the supervisor and the supervised. In other words, the facilitation /
the facilitator conduct includes: empathy, warmth and understanding, validation, acceptance,
attention, respect for personal integrity and autonomy. Good supervisors are flexible,
genuine, interested, experienced and having themselves a lot of customers in counselling /
therapy, have a sense of humour and use it in supervision. Also a good supervisor can
facilitate learning including knowledge and experience relevant to the supervised.
Good quality supervision includes the assessment, namely the structured feedback:
constructive criticism and encouragement, mutual expectations articulation and the goals of
supervision and the constructive confrontation.
Other valuable supervisory skills are working with a particular theory and the shared
theory framework: when the supervised and the supervisor discuss the cases from the
perspective of the same theory the results are better. Theoretical orientation may influence
the supervisor-supervised relationship: for example, a CBT supervisor assumes an advisory
role and tends to focus more on skills and strategies compared to the supervisor of a humanist
or existential orientation that focuses rather on conceptualization.
In general, the orientation on personal development is more valued than the
orientation on technical skills in supervision. The best supervisors cultivate in the supervised
the feeling of realization, imagination, respect, inner harmony and wisdom.
Although the supervisees and the supervisors cannot agree on what good supervision
constitutes, the quantity and quality of supervision are considered by both parties an essential
component of training as a counsellor. The supervisees often prefer the behaviours that foster
autonomy and supportive and facilitative relationships, while the supervisors believe that the
supervisees’ feed-back has a paramount importance.
The working alliance
A good alliance is associated with a high degree of satisfaction in supervision, so the
ability to establish an alliance is an important supervisory responsibility. The work alliance

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consists of a supervisory bundle or relationship, the agreement on goals and tasks of
supervision. When there is a strong emotional bond, including trust, respect and care, there
are fewer role conflicts and role ambiguity, that is conflicts are better solved. The more the
supervisor is revealing himself, the stronger will be the supervisory alliance.
The ideal supervisor is perceived differently depending on the theoretical orientation
of the supervised: be it warm, supportive and friendly, be it task oriented. The behavioural
theoretical orientation supervisees prefer task-oriented supervisors, while the psychodynamic
and humanistic orientation supervisees prefer friendly and supportive supervisors:
- the ”attractive” style: positive, supportive, warm, open, dedicated and flexible;
- the ”interpersonal sensitive” style: perceptive, intuitive, dedicated, creative,
resourceful;
- the ”task oriented” style: task-oriented, didactic, prescriptive, meticulous, practical
and concrete.
These styles of supervision are also correlated with self-disclosure.
According to Chermiss and Equatis, the best style of supervision is focused on
insight, the supervisor addressing questions designed to determine the supervised to solve
problems independently.
The ideal supervisor combines several styles, the most often oriented on insight,
oriented on feelings and teaching-advisory.
The developmental pattern in quality supervision
According to the developmental pattern, the novice counsellor prefers directive style,
didactic, based on clinical skills, highly structured, while the experienced counsellor prefers
the supervision centred on the counter-transfer, the conceptualizations rooted in theory on
many levels and the personal and professional development.
The weak supervisors are those who do not take into account the developmental level
of the supervised.
The supervisees preferred by the supervisors
The supervision is a two way process. A number of studies have focused on the
characteristics of the supervisee ”employing well the supervision” (from the point of view of
the supervisees)
- the beginner counsellors: ask for help when appropriate;
- the experiences counsellors: demonstrate the desire to grow.

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The supervisors and the supervisees have different views on supervision: for the
supervisors the feed-back and the demonstration of awareness of personal dynamics are less
important; for the supervisees, the evaluation is more important than for the supervisors.
The supervisors generally like less dependent supervisees, assertive, participating
actively in the supervision process and limit their exploration of the self, respecting the
boundaries that distinguish the counselling from the supervision (the study was conducted on
a sample reduced in size).
The factors identified by the supervisors as contributing the effective supervision
include the following skills of the supervisees:
- the ability to integrate what they have learned in supervision into conceptualization
and counselling;
- the ability to be aware of their own emotional responses in counselling with the
customers and to use these emotional responses;
- the ability to form relationships with customers, colleagues and supervisors;
- flexibility;
- adherence to the framework and the ethical standards;
- focusing on the customer;
- identification with the supervisor.
Sometimes the supervisors focus too much on their own need for support and praise
from the supervisees.
Differences between disciplines
There are interesting interdisciplinary differences regarding the perception of a good
or a poor supervisor. For example, for doctors a good supervisor:
- allows the resident to speak about the customer experience;
- guides the supervisee regarding the clinical dilemmas;
- is empathetic.
In the therapy family, the supervisees value on:
- the role model provided by the supervisor;
- the structure that includes an analysis of the records of the counselling;
- the promotion of the autonomy of the supervisee;
- the flexibility;
- the self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses.
The problematic supervision may have a negative impact on the supervisee. There are
several patterns of interaction or prototype ”games” in the problematic supervising, patterns

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that lead to the violation of boundaries. For example, if a supervisee flatters the supervisor
praising his exceptional qualities, the supervisor may find it difficult or impossible to give a
proper feedback due to emotional blackmail. Or the supervisee can go out for coffee, etc.,
with the supervisor, so that the supervisory relationship turns into a friendship. Or the
supervisee may know more than the supervisor in a particular segment of theory or literature,
thus changing the balance of power. Another game is where the supervisee scrupulously
follows the suggestions of the supervisor by saying then that it does not work; the supervisor
ends up defending his position. In another game, the supervisee hurts himself regarding the
mistakes he makes, so that the supervisor feels compelled to adopt a supportive position.
There are many types of games in supervision, and the supervisor entering the game
has a lot to lose. A valuable exercise is to send us these patterns during a seminar of
supervision in which these games are intellectually examined so that when they appear in the
supervision can be directly labelled and managed.

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