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Article Excerpt
The present article addresses three areas: learning integration as students, learning integration skills as students and trainees through integrative clinical supervision, and learning to become an integrative clinical supervisor. It focuses on developing integration skills in students and trainees through Christian or integrative clinical supervision in five major aspects or areas of integration: presuppositional, theoretical, intervention, therapeutic relationship, and personal (Gingrich & Worthington, 2007). Three major models of how to effectively conduct Christian clinical supervision are reviewed (Aten, Boyer, & Tucker, 2007; Campbell, 2007; Gingrich & Worthington, 2007) The role of personal mentoring and transformational supervision (Johnson, 2007) is highlighted in the development of integration skills in students, because they learn integration mostly through personal relationships with mentors who model integration for them (Sorensen, Derflinger, Bufford, & McMinn, 2004).
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The literature on the integration of Christian faith or Christian spirituality and clinical supervision has been limited or sparse, but recently some significant contributions have been made in a special issue of the Journal of Psychology and Christian clinical supervision edited by Jamie D. Aten and Michael W. Mangis. Topics covered in this special issue include: philosophical foundations for clinical supervision from a Christian worldview (Bufford, 2007);a developmental model of the religious and spiritual development of supervisees (Ripley, Johnson, Tatum & Davis, 2007); a Christian relational and developmental perspective on creating healthy Supervisory environments (Butman & Kruse, 2007); conceptual framework for Christian integration in clinical supervision (Aten,Boyer, & Tucker 2007); integrating Christianity throughout the supervisory process (Campbell, 2007); the use of spiritual disciplines in clinical supervision (Tan, 2007b); training and preparing supervisors to integrate psychology and Christianity (Jones, 2007); and research considerations in clinical supervision and the integration of faith into clinical practice (Gingrich & Worthington, 2007). Further research on and development of Christian clinical supervision are however, still needed.
The crucial role of clinical supervision in learning therapy skills (e.g. see Bernard & Goodyear, 2004) as well as integration skills (e.g. see walker, Gorsuch & Tan, 2005) has been emphasized in the literature. Walker et al. (2005), in a study of 100 therapists sampled mainly from alumni of an explicitly Christian religious clinical psychology doctoral program that is APA- accredited, found that integration and theology coursework did not significantly correlate with the explicit or direct and overt use of religious and spiritual interventions in therapy. However, clinical training with religious clients (measured by the number of contact hours with religious clients) and intervention- specific training with religious and spiritual supervision hours devoted to religious and spiritual interventions in therapy) did significantly correlate with more frequent use of religious and spiritual petency. In a subsequent study of 1d62 student therapists from three explicitly Christian religious clinical psychology doctoral programs that are APAti-accredited, Walker, Gorsuch, Tan, and Otis (2008) found that intervention-specific way of helping train therapists to explicitly use religious and spiritual interventions in therapy. These two studies by Walker and colleagues focus more specifically on explicit integration skills in intervention or therapy.
The need to pay more attention to spirituality and religion in clinical supervision in general has been emphasized in recent years in the literature on clinical supervision (e.g., see Brawer, Handel, Fabricatore, Roberts & Wajda-Johnston, 2002; Falender & Shafranske, 200, 2007; Hage 2006 see also Bernard &Goodyear, In fact, there is now a small but growing literature on spirituality and religion in general in clinical supervision, especially from a multi- cultural perspective (e,g., see Atem& Thumme, 2003; Frame, 2001; Hage, Hopson, Siegel, payton, & DeFanti, 2006; Miller, Korinek, & Ivey, 2004,2006; polanski,2003).
It is important and appropriate therefore to focus on the crucial role of clinical supervision in developing integration skills in students and trainees The present article reviews several models for conducting integrative or Christian clinical supervision, with a focus on developing integration skills in students and trainees in five major aspects of areas of integration: presuppositional, theoretical, intervention, therapeutic relationship, and personal (Gingrich & Worthington, 2007,p.346).
DEVELOPING INTEGRATION SKILLS
Integration skills in specific areas such as presuppositional, theoretical, intervention, therapeutic relationship, and personal (Gingrich &Worthington, 2007) can be developed in students through various means or methods. Students can learn integration skills (see also Stevenson, Eck, & Hill, 20070 through methods such as classroom instruction or coursework, online instruction, reading and writing research, mentoring by professors or teachers, conferences, personal therapy and modeling by therapists, peer learning, and clinical supervision including mentoring by clinical supervisors in what Johnson (2007) has called transformational supervision. This special issue of the Journal of Psychology and Theology focuses on teaching integration of learning integration in some of these ways. Clinical supervision, however, has a particularly crucial role in developing integration skills in students.
THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF CLINICAL SUPERVISION
Holloway (1992) has described clinical supervision as "the critical teaching method" (p. 177) in the training of clinicians. It has been found to be "a central component in the training of graduate students in clinical, counseling, and school psychology" (Romans, Boswell, Carlozzi, & Ferguson, 1d995, p. 407). More recently, Goodyear (2d007) has asserted that clinical supervision is psychology's signature pedagogy" (p.273) as a crucial and profession-specific teaching method or instructional strategy.
Clinical supervision can...
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