Marriage and Family Therapy Supervision Discussion Paper
1.Discussion 3: Theoretical and Conceptual Approaches to Supervision
My preferred approach is developmental, I believe this approaches has been one that has benefited me and my educational and career growth. In the developmental approach I find that as a supervisor I am able to seek to guide the development of skills and knowledge for the trainees I work with. Like in the therapy session I seek to support the growth and development of my clients. Therapy Supervision These goals client led, I get to collaborate with my client on what areas they would like to be strengthened in. At the same time there is knowledge and education that inevitably is addressed during goal attainment. With client I ensure they do not leave session without some form of educational knowledge or therapeutic skill in addition to a resources and community awareness. In the same manner with my trainees I hope to also develop these areas. I want to practice a therapeutic skills in group supervision, I also want to cover a community resource at every group supervision. Like many areas in educational journey, they require practice and repetition.
In the same way I hope to repeatedly practice therapeutic skills to gain confidence and be able to teach their own clients. Furthermore, the familiarity of community resources is so vital to supporting students and their own therapeutic sessions. As therapist developing our clients awareness of natural and additional resources they can benefit from is vital to recovery and progress. When trainees are familiar with resources, they are more likely to make that connection in the therapy session with their own clients. Marriage and Family Therapy Building that muscle memory and training their skills to connect their clients to resources available beyond the therapy session helps strengthen their therapeutic approaches. This is what Borders (1992) has eluded to, the idea that as a supervisor I should always think of how I can develop the councilor to better support the recovery of their patients. There are several overlapping areas of supervision approaches, all of supervision approaches include the addressing of strengths and weakness. Supervisors become aware through the supervisory approach to what their student trainee’s strengths and weaknesses are. In all of these areas of approaches I also believe Borders (1992) refers to the idea that as supervisors we not merely telling the counselors how they should respond to their clients we are always “thinking” how can this case be of learning experience to my trainee.
2. Discussion 3: Theoretical and Conceptual Approaches to Supervision
This is a great question/discussion. I found it ironic that this is always a question that is asked when I am interviewing for a new job or after being hired and meeting with a supervisor for the first time. Preferred supervision approaches can make or break the supervisory relationship between those involved. I like to believe my supervisee and supervisor styles are similar and are aligned. I tend to supervise how I would want to.
My preferred approach is integrative. This is usually how I prefer to conduct therapy and supervision. I enjoy being adaptive, flexible, and dynamic when doing therapy work. When working with clients I like to integrate a variety of modalities in. I typically use solution focused therapy and narrative therapy. I enjoy drawing from the strengths of different approaches and using them to offset their weaknesses. I am the same way in supervision. I like to apply approaches that are suitable and fitting to the supervisee. In this case, I would be cautious to not find myself not holding to the true fundamental of a specific approach. I also find the social-role approach ideal as well. I value adapting my role as supervisor to the circumstances or need in a situation.