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Article Excerpt
It is well established that clinical supervision is among the most effective methods for helping counselors to build skills and develop professionally (Bernard & Goodyear, 2004). The clinical supervisor is responsible for protecting the client's welfare, teaching clinical conceptualization and counseling skills, fostering supervisee self-awareness, and evaluating the supervisee. Thus, the supervision process, particularly in counselor training programs, is central to counselors' development.
With its 2001 revisions, the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) added triadic supervision to the list of approved clinical supervision modalities, along with individual and group supervision. Triadic supervision is described by CACREP as two supervisees working with one supervisor, in a process that involves all three members simultaneously (CACREP, 2001). There appear to be a number of benefits to using triadic supervision, but there are also potential challenges that should be considered. When introducing any new supervision modality, care must be taken to preserve the essential aspects of the supervision process. A review of the literature, however, reveals little research on this particular supervision structure. Our aim, therefore, was to address this gap by examining the experiences of supervisees who have participated in triadic supervision. Following a review of the literature, we describe the context for the study and the method used. We then discuss the findings and examine several implications of these findings for clinical supervision.
Review of the Literature
In our review of the literature relevant to triadic supervision, we examined the empirical studies that have been conducted to date. Recently, Stinchfield, Hill, and Kleist (2007) detailed the preliminary findings on their Reflective Model of Triadic Supervision. The authors noted some of the benefits of triadic supervision, as reported by supervisees: the multiple perspectives in feedback, vicarious learning opportunities, a more comfortable atmosphere as compared to group supervision, and some insight into providing feedback themselves. The authors also identified some of the challenges of triadic supervision, as far as supervisees' difficulty with providing critical feedback to the supervision peer and supervisees' discomfort when the peer assumed the observer role and gave feedback.
Newgent, Davis, and Farley (2005) evaluated the perceptions of 15 student supervisors who participated in combinations of individual, triadic, and group supervision-of-supervision. The participants rated their supervisory experiences using the Working Alliance Inventory (Horvath, 1984), Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory (Efstation, Patton, & Kardash, 1990), Supervision Styles Inventory (Friedlander & Ward, 1984), and the Supervision of Supervision and Evaluation (Newgent, 2002). The authors concluded that supervisors in training perceived triadic supervision as similar to individual supervision with regard to the working alliance, supervisory leadership style, relationship dynamics, and satisfaction with supervision. These findings suggest that individual and triadic supervision may be more alike than different in how they are experienced by student supervisors.
Unpublished studies by Bakes (2005) and Nguyen (2004) have also examined several facets of triadic supervision. Nguyen found that counselor effectiveness did not vary according to the type of supervision, whether split-focus triadic supervision in which two supervisees each received half of the attention during any given session, or single-focus triadic supervision in which two supervisees received exclusive attention during alternate weeks. Supervisee developmental level varied across both types of supervision. Bakes examined the working alliance between supervisors and supervisees who received triadic supervision and found that triadic supervision assisted supervisees in understanding their clients and minimized the supervisee's identification with the supervisor.
Our review of the literature revealed only a small number of studies of triadic supervision, and important aspects of this supervision modality remain unexamined. The general aim of qualitative inquiry is to understand a phenomenon from the perspective of those who have experienced it, including the meanings that they assign to those experiences. Qualitative methodology, therefore, seemed particularly well suited for use in this study. Moreover, given the paucity of research on triadic supervision, a qualitative approach can be valuable in generating important insights about this phenomenon that can then be examined further in subsequent qualitative or quantitative research. Thus, we sought to answer the research question What are the experiences of supervisees in triadic supervision?
Context for the Study
Triadic supervision is the primary clinical supervision modality in a counselor education program at a large mid-Atlantic public university. Students in the master's-degree program can choose a concentration in either school counseling or community counseling and are required to complete both a practicum and an internship during the course of their training. The practicum involves 100 hours of practice in the university's clinic and in local public schools; the internship consists of 600 hours of practice in either a public school or a community counseling agency setting. Beginning in the practicum, counseling students receive weekly group supervision with a faculty member and weekly triadic supervision with a doctoral student who is under the supervision of the faculty member. This same format continues during the student's internship, with the addition of on-site individual supervision that is provided by an internship site supervisor.
The doctoral-level students who serve as supervisors in triadic supervision reflect a variety of backgrounds, personally and professionally. A requirement of students entering the doctoral program is that they have at least 2 years of prior clinical experience, and all of the supervisors in triadic supervision have significantly more experience than this. Although the supervisors as a group may use a variety of counseling theories in their own clinical work, the supervision model that they are trained to use is strongly developmental. The training program also involves the ongoing use of supervision-of-supervision to monitor the supervisors' work during triadic supervision.
The format of the triadic supervision follows a structure that has been developed by faculty members at the abovementioned university. Students are paired with a supervision peer on the basis of factors such as developmental level (skill level, internal versus external motivation, level of abstract thinking); personality factors; and, at times, practical considerations such as geographic location, schedule availability, and training track. The pairs are then matched with a supervisor.
The triad meets each week for approximately 1 hour, and time is allotted to each of the supervisees. At the beginning of the supervision meeting, time is given to one of the supervisees to provide a brief "check-in" to follow up on his or her counseling sessions for the previous week and to present any immediate counseling-related or other concerns, which are then addressed by the triad. The second supervisee, however, is the main focus of the supervision meeting and presents a segment of a videotaped counseling session that he or she has chosen. Supervisees are asked to choose a segment of a counseling session in which they feel they either did well or struggled.
The triad views approximately 15 minutes of the counseling tape (this length may vary from triad to triad), and the supervisor and the other supervisee then address the presenting supervisee's questions or other requests and provide various forms of feedback. Feedback is given at the end, and oftentimes at specific points during, the videotaped segment and is normally also followed by more general discussion by all triad members of issues raised by the videotape and/or feedback. This sequence of activities is repeated during each week of the practicum or internship, with supervisees alternating in the two roles described previously. It should also be emphasized that supervisors work to actively engage both supervisees in the supervision process, and specific strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of the triadic structure are part of each supervisor's training and supervision.
Method
Participants were selected from current master's-level students in the previously mentioned counselor education program who had...
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