Supervision in psychology - what is it? Forms and techniques of supervision

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

In professional work, progress is also an important component to success and psychological balance. Therefore, for many speci alties, a program has been developed to improve working skills. For most professions, there is an increase in classification, courses or internships. All of them contribute to some kind of progress in the working activity of a person, pushing him to development.

Features of specialist training

Psychology and therapy went further in this direction and provided for their wards a branch of productive professional growth - this is supervision in psychology. Such a component can help both in working practice and in personal emotional experiences. This role is played by a supervisor - a specially trained professional in the field of psychotherapy. His main task is to help and support his less experienced colleague.

In Russia and the CIS countries, psychological supervision as a separate profession is rarely considered, since there are no individually assigned courses or faculties in this area. But this is notan obstacle to studying such a speci alty on their own or in a general psychology program. Many highly qualified supervisors study outside of Russia or practice abroad. Therefore, in our country it is possible to find a professional specialist in this category and get his help and support in your own workflow.

So, supervision in psychology is a universal system of professional assistance from specialists, helping to grow in a future career. It can also be called cotherapy, which is based on the work of several highly qualified specialists with extensive experience. This helps with the help of the supervisor to objectively look at their problems at work. It also helps to share the responsibility of dealing with them with a qualified cotherapist.

The Benefits of Helping a Specialist in Difficult Situations

At this point, there are several precise aspects of supervisor support:

• create ways to find your own potential in psychology;
• deeper to understand the intricacies and peculiarities of working with clients, better understand their problems and emotional state;
• understand the effectiveness of their own treatment methods, analyze their effect and correct comparison with the basics of psychology and therapy;
• be aware of one's own emotional state when the client's problems and reaction to them.

The object of supervision is a qualified specialist in the fieldpsychology or therapy, undergoing practice or internship in their field. A practicing professional can seek help from such a system to improve their skills or solve their own problems in their personal lives that affect their work.

In addition, the supervisor must:

• keep constant contact with your ward and monitor his emotional background;
• promote the development of the therapist, promote the disclosure of opportunities in professional activities;
• keep your own position and unemotional assessment in relation to the specialist;
• provide support to restore the therapist's integrity and personality.

The process of supervision is able to eliminate emotional retardation or regression, to save novice psychotherapists from professional loneliness. This technique can also improve the efficiency of the workflow and eliminate subsequent errors in it.

Main categories of supervision

In the practice of this method of helping specialists, there are three forms:

• full-time;
• part-time;
• correspondence.

They are distributed according to the number of participants, their role in the whole process and the time period required to fix the problems.

Full-time supervision

The first form is considered the most extensive and deep. Sessions according to its principles can take place in a group, family orindividual format. In cotherapy of this nature, the supervisor conducts the session in person and observes the specialists and their clients. This form should be agreed with patients and their psychologist to prevent privacy issues.

Full-time supervision can be divided into subtypes:

• personal (with the presence of the client during the cotherapy session);
• group (with the interaction of the patient or family and psychotherapists), most often used with problem patients;
• spatial;
• temporary.

Personal cotherapy is carried out in cooperation between a specialist and his supervisor. The patient or family is also involved in the process. The main tasks of such therapy are the joint identification of the client's problems and the search for their solution.

Group supervision is considered the most productive of all its forms. The principle of its operation is in sessions with one patient or family, where the cotherapist distributes individual tasks between each specialist. For example, a married couple came to a psychotherapist, one participant needs to determine the relationship between the spouses, the second - to determine the style of communication, the third - the main problems that exist between them. Thus, it is possible to achieve a complete definition of the causes of discord in the family, their awareness by all specialists, and find methods for their treatment. Also, group supervision participants gain new experience and skills.

Spatial cotherapy is used to train a psychotherapist to communicate with patients. During a session, the supervisor may beboth in the room (encouraging the specialist and pushing him in the right direction), and outside it (without interfering with the main process).

The temporary form of cotherapy depends on the urgency of the psychoanalysis with a specialist (delayed or immediate).

Advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face therapy

Dignity of such supervision:

1. More effective sessions.
2. Fewer moves.
3. Minimal material costs due to the short duration of supervision.
4. A set of techniques for teaching psychotherapy in relation to a specialist.
5. More trusting relationships of contacts.

As attractive and useful as this method of psychotherapy is, it also has many disadvantages:

1. When an inexperienced specialist works with a patient, the confidentiality of the treatment process is violated, which in the future may negatively affect the mental state of the client.
2. The therapist's decision-making dependency on his more experienced colleague.
3. Excessive focus on the supervisor's workflow that interferes with the natural flow of events.

In full-time, as in all others, there are advantages and disadvantages. But today this method of cotherapy is considered the most extensive and correct, when a specialist has many problems, both professional and personal.

External supervision

The principles of its work are to solve problems remotely, without close contact with anotherprofessional. The correspondence form of supervision can take place both in an individual session and in a group session. The specialist collects the materials of his psychotherapeutic work and provides them to the supervisor to analyze his activities and identify shortcomings in the work.

The cotherapist himself does not take part in the work of his ward and does not conduct research on his patients. This makes this form the most optimal for long-term cooperation with a specialist. Also, the analysis of the psychotherapist's report can be analyzed in the presence of his other colleagues, which helps to gain more experience in work, but not harm the emotional state of the patient by examining his situation remotely.

The combination of these forms

The part-time variety is not yet widespread in the world, but nevertheless it is considered effective. This supervision in psychology is most often used for married couples, in which it is quite difficult for an inexperienced specialist to understand the problems.

This cotherapy session requires an equipped room with mirrored glass, a group of professionals in this field, an aspiring therapist and a couple who agree to such a session. During the supervision, experiencing difficulties in work, the specialist can contact his more experienced colleagues by phone for a consultation. Such co-therapy not only helps the psychotherapist to fulfill his professional duties independently, but also, in case of failures, to feel better and receive support from therapists. She develops innovice specialist self-confidence and develops experience.

In order for a psychotherapist to correctly determine the form of social supervision, which in the future will contribute to the most effective problem solving, it is necessary to pay special attention to the specifics that impede professional activity, and the most appropriate methods for its elimination.

Only an experienced psychotherapist can give an accurate assessment of the severity of the case. It is impossible to independently recognize all your mistakes in professional activity. For severe cases, only individual lessons are suitable, which contribute to the rapid resolution of problems. But in minor mistakes, you can get by with only a remote consultation, thanks to which the cotherapist will be able to direct the specialist in the right direction.

Types of psychological supervision

At the initial stage of introducing such a method of therapy, a method is determined that will be more productive for a specialist. Full-time and part-time forms are divided into several main and most global categories. In general, there are two types of cotherapy:

• individual;
• group.

Such supervisions differ in application techniques in relation to a specialist and problems that a more qualified colleague must solve.

Custom shape

This supervision in psychology is to improve the skills of a specialist with less work experience. The main tasks of a form of this nature are: development and supportprofessional knowledge, how to apply it in practice, the analysis and solution of personal problems that may affect the treatment of the patient.

Also, an individual approach to such psychotherapy gives an increase in the specialist's confidence in his abilities, the ability to conduct treatment sessions for the client independently in further practice and the opportunity to improve his competence in the profession. The supervisor and his mentee constantly interact with each other during individual work and share responsibility for the treatment of the patient between them.

Sessions of psychotherapy of this nature should be held once every 1-2 months. During the allotted time, the supervisor should compile progress reports with his client and monitor the dynamics. Sessions do not end until the employee has acquired all the necessary skills to work with clients and learn to control their emotions in the profession.

When new problems arise in professional activity, the therapist can again resort to the help of a supervisor. As many psychologists note, such sessions will always benefit the specialist, they should be carried out regularly. The help of a supervisor may be needed even in cases where, at first glance, the psychotherapist does not have any problems, and the treatment of patients is always successful. An experienced professional will be able to analyze the methods that a specialist uses in his work, and his general emotional state, to summarize the observations received.

Thanks to individual supervision:

• employee gets due attention;
• all personal issues that the therapist is unwilling or embarrassed to point out in front of a group of people will be handled confidentially;
• a specialist who is at the stage of adaptation will better understand all the instructions and advice of a more experienced professional.

Group form

Promotes the acquisition of teamwork skills. Supervision sessions in psychotherapy conducted in a team can give a person more knowledge about all the client's problems. Everything that could not be understood or misunderstood by one specialist can be recognized by another. The supervisor during such meetings only distributes tasks to the wards, monitors their implementation and subsequently formulates conclusions about the work done by the team.

Any form of assistance to specialists can eliminate problems and shortcomings in professional activities. Which method of supervision the psychotherapist will prescribe will depend on the characteristics of the work process, the personality of the person and his emotional background, which manifests itself in the profession.