Training and Supervision of Students and New

¶ … training and supervision of students and new practitioners is a process that involves mental health counselors who play an integral role ranging from teaching clinical skills in educational settings to offering on-site supervision. Therefore, supervision is an important aspect of mental health practice that involves various techniques like psychotherapy-driven supervision. Psychotherapy-driven supervision is a process that is demonstrated in three theoretical approaches i.e. cognitive-behavioral, humanistic-relationship, and solution-focused models. This process promotes the combination of best-practices in psychotherapy-based approaches and social role-based techniques of supervision. Therefore, this approach integrates two components i.e. counseling theory and practice with role-oriented supervision models. According to Pearson (2006), the combination of these two elements enables supervisors to model and provide training on psychotherapeutic practices in a manner that meets the unique learning requirements of new counselors (p.250).

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Generally, the use of clinical supervision in the mental health field is a concept that emerged more like apprenticeships in other professions. As a result, a novice, student, or new counselor would begin the process with minimal knowledge and acquire more skills through observation, providing assistance, and obtaining feedback from a competent member within the same profession. This learning process was based on the assumption that the competent professional would be similarly good in training and/or supervising the apprentice (Smith, 2009).

Similar to other clinical supervision models, psychotherapy-based supervision approaches seem to be an ordinary extension of the therapy itself. Psychotherapy-driven supervision is an example of integrative models of supervision since its dependent on more than a single theory or model. The integrative nature of this model is demonstrated in the author's illustration of its combination of counseling theory and practice with role-based supervision technique (Pearson, 2006, p.242). Pearson describes this approach as an inclusive model of supervision that is based on the strengths of behavioral, cognitive, and psychodynamic-based supervision. The author provides a clear explanation of each of these aspects and their relevance to the psychotherapy-driven supervision model.

While the author spends a great deal of time explaining how psychotherapy-driven supervision is an integrative model of supervision, she does not explain the limitations of this approach and measures that can be taken to enhance its effectiveness. Actually, Pearson recognizes that this model is coupled with some shortcomings and challenges that hinder its effectiveness. These limitations contribute to a huge gap between the approach and alternative supervision techniques that focuses directly on the process of the supervisee or apprentice's professional development and supervision process. Actually, the author focuses on providing a quick-solution or model that can be used to maximize the strengths of psychologically-driven supervision and lessen its limitations. However, she does not clearly describe the limitations of this technique and what contributes to these limitations. She provides an approach for enhancing its strengths and minimizing the limitations without a clear explanation of these limitations. As evident in the article, the author's proposed solution is based on criticisms of the model.