Modes of Supervision

Abstract

In Australia and the United Kingdom, lifelong supervision has become a requirement for counsellors and psychotherapists and has been built in to the professional codes of conduct as a mandatory requirement (Neufeldt, 1999, cited in Feltham, 2000). The most commonly adopted mode of supervision in Australia is the individual mode, where a less-experienced therapist consults with a more experienced therapist about their caseload face-to-face. This form of supervision, often heavily based on case discussion, is normally conducted at least once a month and is seen as vital to the ethical practice and ongoing professional development of counsellors and psychotherapists. In this chapter we begin by describing our own personal experiences of supervision - both exceptional and ordinary. We then describe four different modes of supervision including individual, group, peer and self-supervision and the different techniques that can be used within each mode. We explore the strengths and weaknesses of each of these modes of supervision. We discuss ways of empowering supervisees to seek out the supervision that they need. In the process, we challenge the assumption that the individual mode of supervision is the most appropriate mode for counselling supervision in all cases.