Michael Jacobs and Carroll's theories on counseling supervisor roles and relationships

Counseling Supervisors

The Nature and Principles of Counseling Supervision

The Purposes and Roles of Supervision

According to Michael Jacobs - in Search of Supervision: In Search of a Therapist - "supervision refers to the opportunity for the counselor or therapist to discuss her or his work with a more experienced colleague." And certainly, in the counseling profession, supervision is not the equivalent of "line management" - and indeed there is, Jacobs asserts (1)...an established norm...that counselors should continue to be supervised throughout their working life." In the codes of the British Association for Counselling, there is a "minimum of an hour and a half a month for supervision" for all counselors.

And according to Supervising Counsellors: Issues of Responsibility (Wheeler, et al., 2001), the purpose of supervision primarily is "safeguarding the client" by "promoting the development and well-being of the counselor," and by "monitoring" the counselor's work, and by "educating / training" the counselor so he or she is up to the important tasks at hand (44).

Through the fact of his ultimate responsibility to the safeguarding of the client, the role of the supervisor implies a "duty to uphold the profession," which takes in a bigger picture than merely educating and overseeing the trainee. The code in counseling supervision which is published by the British Association for Counseling (BAC) (46) emphasizes that "counseling supervision is not about 'policing'" the trainee; or in other words, the supervisor is not to be about "checking up on you."

Rather, the BAC states that the role of the trainee in this interaction with a supervisor is to develop a relationship in which the supervisor "is regarded as a trusted colleague who can help you to reflect on all dimensions of your practice, and through that process, to develop your counseling role." These roles will not emerge overnight, Wheeler writes (47): "Time must be taken to form a relationship in which the truth can be told" as to the open lines of communication which must exist for the supervisee to speak candidly about his or her clients and their sessions.

Wheeler also writes (45) that the "essence of the supervisory relationship is the process of human exchange." And it stands to logic and reason then that, as Wheeler puts it, the "quality of the relationship" that the counselor has with the supervisor is a "significant determining factor in the quality of the learning that takes place."

On the subject of learning, in Michael Carroll's book, Counseling Supervision: Theory, Skills and Practice, the author makes no bones about the fact the he believes the most important role a supervisor can play is as a teacher, an educator, insofar as his supervisee / trainee's development is concerned. On page 27, Carroll candidly admits his position "sounds like a terrible choice," but, if he had the option between a "good counselor who was a poor educator, or a poor counselor who was a good educator," he would prefer the "latter" as supervisor.

Why would he make that choice - preferring a poor counselor who happened to serve the role a good teacher / educator? His answer, also on page 27: "...education is more at the heart of supervision than is counseling." He admits that his position is not universally accepted by professionals in the field, notably authors Page and Wosket, who, he quotes, state "quite clearly that supervision is 'primarily a containing and enabling process, rather than an educational or therapeutic process'."

In Carroll's view, a good supervisor can "move between" the extremes of "totally didactic teaching at one end and totally self-directed learning at the other." That is because "good teachers" can infuse lessons with various learning formats, and they know "when to move from the teacher-pupil relationship to the mentor relationship, to the experiential learning stance, to the authoritative stance."

Goals

Sometimes the simplest of goals can help the supervisor focus on maximizing the trainee's learning process. Supervising the Counsellor: A Cyclical Model - by Steve Page and Val Wosket - offers (76) several objectives for a supervisee to do in preparation for his meeting with a supervisor, and for the supervisor, as well. "Ensure the session ends on time with the last ten minutes given to review; find a way of sensitively challenging my supervisee to cut down on the amount of background information he normally gives about each client..."

Ethics and Responsibilities

Carroll also talks about Ethical behavior in his book - and he (148-149) believes that while "unethical behavior exists" in counseling, it isn't just counselors abusing clients, but also, supervisors abusing supervisees. And the problem lies in the fact that there is a shortage of good teaching on the subject. "Students are left to discover ethical solutions by 'osmosis'" he asserts, because "simply providing ethical information is not enough, students end up without sufficient skills to make ethical decisions."

As to what responsibility supervisors have in terms of their ethical duties towards supervisees, Carroll suggests supervisors not merely wait until issues arise within the supervisory duties to discuss ethics: rather, supervisors should practice good ethical behavior and insist that trainees be given full courses in ethics, not just three-hour seminars.

In their book Developing Counsellor Supervision, Colin Feltham and Windy Dryden point out (112) that in recent years "there has been a great deal of exposure of counselors who seriously and blatantly abuse their position and undermine public confidence" in the counseling profession. And while "sexual abuse" gets the headlines, Feltham et al. write that several other issues are considered ethical misdeeds. They mention "transgressing confidentiality," "exploiting clients financially...or emotionally," among some of the most obvious.

There are also ethical abuses such as being five minutes late to a counseling session (113), or "the failure to respect clients' autonomy and personal and cultural values." It is also possible, Feltham writes, to engage in "religious proselytizing" or "unwittingly sway clients towards certain moral, religious, political or other ideological views" on issues like abortion, sexual orientation, among others. Further, other ethical abuses include: "the failure to adapt to the individual needs of clients" (114); and a supervisor who is "dogmatic...because that is likely to inhibit supervisees' development and creativity in the service of clients."

In a book called Supervising Counsellors and Therapists: A Developmental Approach, the authors allude to the development of supervisees in three phases. The Level One supervisee focuses mostly on "self,' is very eager to become a good worker, and is very dependent on the supervisor. A Level Two supervisee becomes so attuned on "other" that every client becomes so extraordinarily unique that the supervisee may resist "any suggestions from the supervisor that general principles may apply to this particular person" (Stoltenberg, et al., 1988).

That would seem to be out of bounds and a bit arrogant or naive, but it is a reality in many cases, the authors say. The Level Three supervisee, meanwhile, "has achieved a balance between self- and other-awareness, and is beginning to develop a personal clinical style, which decreases dependence on the supervisor." And yet, notwithstanding that balance, the supervisor must always stay in contact with the supervisee, lest the pressure and drama associated with a myriad of client personality types take the supervisee into an unreality situation regarding therapy. Supervision must always be vigilant, and fair, and thorough.