督导重要事件对新手咨询师专业成长的影响

Critical Incidents in Supervision and the Impact on Professional Development of Trainee Counselors

目的:了解个别督导过程中重要事件的类别、内涵及对新手咨询师专业成长的影响。方法:采用重要事件报告法设计,访谈4对受督者和督导师,用类属分析法分析资料。结果:有益重要事件包括督导关系、概念化、历程化、个人化四大类;督导促进了新手咨询师八个专业领域的成长;影响路径包括督导师实施干预策略、受督者感知反应、受督者出现专业进步和受督者实现专业成长。结论:督导对于新手咨询师专业成长非常重要。各类督导事件的促进作用并不均衡。

Stoltenberg(1981,2010)proposed in the Integrated Development Model(IDM)that counselors showed different characteristics in supervision at different stages of development.The trainee counselors had already started to accept formal professional training but still lacked skills and experience.The empirical research can explore how the supervisors conduct interventions and its effect,so as to provide a theoretical reference for improving.The Critical Incident Technique(CIT)is a qualitative research method universally used in the psychological counseling and supervision studies.This method can focus on the most important and meaningful events,thereby eliminating the interference of other complicated information.Therefore,this study uses CIT to explore the domains and categories of the critical incidents occurred during the supervision process of the trainee counselors as supervisees,and to find what the supervision process impacts on the professional development of counselors and how the impacts happen.The participants of this study included 4 pairs of supervisors and trainee counselors who were conducting individual supervision at the mental health counseling center in a certain college of Nanjing,China.The research procedures were as follows.Firstly,the individual supervision process between each pair of supervisors and supervisees was live-recorded.Secondly,the participants were invited to fill out the"Critical Incident Questionnaire"(CIQ)immediately after each supervision,which included critical incidents in the supervision process and their corresponding thoughts,feelings,and behaviors.Thirdly,within 48 hours after the supervision,the supervisors and the supervisees received about one-hour semistructured interviews.Interview questions included:(1)Which were the most significant and impressive events in the last supervision?(2)What was the main topic of discussion at that time?(3)How did the supervisor conducted the interventions?(4)How did the supervisee react?(5)What was the immediate effect?(6)Why do you think this event is important?A total of 18 interviews were conducted with 8 interviewees.Fourthly,interview data was analyzed using category analysis methods.3 researchers coded the data together.The results indicate that critical incidents of supervision which are helpful to the professional development of trainee counselors can be summarized into 4 categories:supervisory relationship incidents,intervention process incidents,conceptualization incidents and personalization incidents.These incidents contribute to professional developments in the 8 domains of trainee counselors:intervention skills and capabilities,therapeutic plans and goals,case conceptualization,theoretical knowledge learning,evaluation skills,interpersonal evaluation skills,professional ethics,morality and laws,and acceptance of individual difference.The conclusion of this study is that supervision is rather important for improving the professional competency of trainee counselors.The supervisory relationship incidents,intervention process incidents,conceptualization incidents and personalization incidents during the supervision process can promote the professional development of trainee counselors effectively.The impact of the critical incidents on the professional growth of the trainee counselors is achieved through the interventions of the supervisor,the perceived response of the supervisee,the small professional progress of the supervisee,and the improvement of the professional growth skills of the supervisee.Due to the difficulty in sampling,the sample size of this study was relatively small,and the participants all came from the same counseling institution.In further studies,a large number of supervisors and supervisees with different theoretical orientations should be selected among various counseling institutions.The difference and the cause of the perceptions between supervisors’and supervisees’can also be explored in the future,as well as some cultural factors concerned.