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Book Reviews |
This is not a book to be read from one cover to the other. A book of thirty-one separate and discrete essays rarely is. But the editor thankfully makes a reviewer's task relatively easy in his eminently clear introduction depicting his purpose and method in organizing the book. He intends to provide an up-to-date resource; to define psychotherapy supervision; to describe various of its models and orientations; to address some of its teaching formats as well as some of its "specialized forms and modes"; to review critically some relevant current research; and, finally, to address today's hot issues of gender and ethnicity. All are well accomplished. Nevertheless, he admits, some important topics are absent, notably sex therapy. His intended audience is "graduate students who are enrolled in supervision courses and seminars" and the rather broadly designated "mental health professionals."
Watkins accomplishes these aims by dividing the book into seven sections: Conceptual and Methodological Foundations; Approaches to Psychotherapy Supervision; Training Models for Psychotherapy Supervision; Specialized Forms and Modes; Researching Psychotherapy Supervision; Professional, Ethical, and Legal Issues; and a short Endnotes section. Together, they effectively cover a comprehensive array of issues bearing on knowledge, practice, and thinking about the supervisory process.
Descriptions of supervision in fourteen different therapeutic modalities are included. I wondered how often students or teachers of any particular system might assign or be assigned readings about a system other than their own. Only some of these chapters seemed to clearly and effectively describe and distinguish the unique tenets and procedures of their particular styles of therapy. Notable among these were the chapter by Woods and Ellis on supervision in rational emotive behavior therapy, that of Liese and Beck on cognitive therapy supervision, and that of Yontef on gestalt therapy supervision. Surprising was the extent of divergence among the various supervisory styles with regard to some specific issues: for example, the integration of parallel process in both psychoanalytic and rational-emotive therapeutic supervision and its stringent avoidance in the interpersonal approach (as described by Hess).
I found Knapp and VandeCreek's chapter on ethical and legal aspects of clinical supervision to be instructive, well written, and a helpful reminder of the legal responsibilities that supervisors bear together with their supervisees. Duffy and Morales's chapter addresses an increasingly pressing contemporary problem, the supervision of treatment with older patients, and cogently presents important data on this expanding (but often forgotten) segment of the population.
Altfeld and Bernard's new model of group supervision—capitalizing on the inherent power of the supervisor's unconscious attunement, as well as that of the group members, to understand the patient/therapist dyad— seemed a potentially exponential enhancement of the incisiveness of the work. In contrast, the chapter by Mahrer and Boulet on the experiential model of on-the-job teaching seemed sloganistic and tedious, while promulgating a disconcertingly simplistic and superficial conception of the therapeutic process.
Chapters addressing general principles by which one can grasp, analyze, and learn about the supervision process itself, regardless of theory or modality, are much more to the heart of the matter. Some of the chapters on training models are in this vein. "Structures for the Analysis and Teaching of Supervision," by Holloway, stands out in this regard by offering a systems model for understanding the various tasks and functions of the supervisory process itself. "The Major Formats of Psychotherapy Supervision," by Goodyear and Nelson, spells out various modes (and their prevalences) for the delivery of supervisory services; however, it does not address the patient impact and implications of some of the formats described, notably "live" supervision. The chapter on "prerequisites and problems," by Rodenhauser, also considers some of the more universal characteristics of the supervisory process.
Also addressing these broader issues are the three chapters in the commendable section on research into the supervisory process. "The Effectiveness of Psychotherapy Supervision," by Lambert and Ogles, concludes essentially that training and manuals are enhancing to the supervisory skills. "Inferences Concerning Supervisees and Clients in Clinical Supervision," an integrative review by Ellis and Ladany, highlights the dearth of solid empirical findings in the field. And "Research on Supervisor Variables in Psychotherapy Supervision," by Neufeldt, Beutler, and Banchero, spells out some of the obstacles with which research in this field must contend. One might expect that the editor's concluding chapter would offer a comprehensive and conceptual integrative distillation, but it is essentially a brief summary of what has gone before.
Whether this book would indeed be useful for the general population of mental health professionals or graduate students studying the supervisory process, as the editor intended, is a real question. It is certainly not a book that could function as a text, except perhaps for selected, assigned readings. For more experienced supervisors already familiar with practices and issues in the field and aware of the kinds of information that could enhance their work in the training context, it would appear to offer only very limited help. This limitation seems to define this book primarily as a reference work, but, since it is both comprehensive and scholarly in its approach, very likely quite an effective one.
Footnotes
Dr. Schlachet is Senior Staff Member and Supervisor, Individual and Group Therapy Training Departments, Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, New York, NY.
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