Models for Supervision of Counseling and Counseling

The Counseling Center staff employ a variety of models in their supervision of interns. Generally stated, the goals are to help develop the clinical and consulting expertise, professional identity, and personal resources of interns.

In several models of therapy, the therapist is thought of as providing an "enabling space" for growth to occur. This enabling space consists of the person of the therapist and the depth of the therapist's knowledge. The more integrated, differentiated and knowledgeable the therapist, the more space he or she can provide for the client to develop. One major purpose in supervision, therefore, is to enhance the development of this "enabling space."

In addition, it is important to help interns see the relationship between their own development and their ability to facilitate the development of their clients.

Complementary to personal development is the development of professional competencies. Interns come to a training center having had a variety of experiences and training. Their supervisors are responsible for helping them refine their therapeutic approaches, add to their therapeutic skills, and develop a profound knowledge of the process of therapy. The training program is also responsible for helping interns develop and refine their supervision skills, their consultation and programming skills and their sensitivity to and competency with multicultural, gender, sexual orientation and other diversity issues.

Professional competencies must continue to develop after the internship has been completed. It is the task of the training program, supervisors and major focus area supervisors to help the intern see himself or herself as a professional psychologist having a commitment to professional roles and functions, and to ethical and legal responsibilities.

Although there is agreement about the general goals for supervision, the model used to achieve these ends differs with each staff member. While some staff share similar models, the emphases and subtleties of their implementation are individual and therefore unique. Descriptions by staff of their individual approaches and models of supervision can be found by clicking on their names in the Staff Directory.