Simple Not Easy: a Phenomenological Study of School Counselor Clinical Supervision Experiences

Clinical supervision is a valuable practice for mental health professionals working in any therapeutic capacity (Bernard & Goodyear, 2009 ). However, the application of supervision is not uniformly applied across counseling professions and contexts. School counseling supervision, for example, ha...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal for the advancement of counselling 2024-03, Vol.46 (1), p.113-129
Main Authors: Gillen, Mark C., Howells, Renée C., Mercer, Vanessa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic guidance counseling
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Clinical Psychology
Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Leadership
Medical personnel
Mental health
Needs
Operational definitions
Original Article
Peers
Professional identity
Psychological Methods/Evaluation
Psychology
Psychotherapy and Counseling
School counseling
School Counselors
Supervision
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Clinical supervision is a valuable practice for mental health professionals working in any therapeutic capacity (Bernard & Goodyear, 2009 ). However, the application of supervision is not uniformly applied across counseling professions and contexts. School counseling supervision, for example, has been a topic of complexity and debate within the counseling profession, as professional identity and development needs differ. Current literature has largely centered on operationalizing the process of school counseling supervision through counseling theory and proposed models of supervision (Hilts et al. in  Journal of Counselor Leadership and Advocacy, 9 (2), 99–114, 2022 ). There is an identifiable gap in understanding the nuanced needs of school counselors and how to address those needs to make clinical supervision accessible and practical in the workplace. This interpretative phenomenological analysis study examines the experiences of seven practicing school counselors in the USA who engaged in ongoing peer-to-peer clinical supervision with author one. Results from this study include three superordinate themes that inform foundational concepts of effective school counseling supervision as “simple, not easy”: (1) counselor growth, (2) supervisor knowledge, and (3) sustainability. The practical implications of these findings are discussed, and recommendations are provided.
ISSN:0165-0653
1573-3246
DOI:10.1007/s10447-023-09537-w