| Description |
Supervision is described as a central method for teaching psychotherapy, wherein licensed psychotherapy clinicians facilitate the development of supervisees' clinical capabilities and skills, transmit the values and ethics inherent in the counseling profession, address issues of client wellbeing, and foster integration of multicultural perspectives into clinical training. Supervisors with a feminist multicultural (FMC) approach to counseling are uniquely positioned to train prospective psychologists about the knowledge, awareness, and skills necessary for clinical work with multiculturally diverse clients, because the basic tenets of FMC are congruent with multicultural competency. Although extensive literature exists on clinical supervision, little scholarship and research has focused specifically on the FMC perspective. In an effort to understand the conceptualization and practice of FMC supervision, the present study explored the experiences of 14 supervisors who utilized FMC principles in their supervision practice. A qualitative grounded theory design employed individual initial interviews, follow-up interviews, and feedback interviews. Via grounded theory analysis procedures, a conceptual model emerged to explain how FMC supervisors conceptualize and practice supervision. Analysis yielded the core category Dealing with the Complexities of Power. The FMC supervisors in this study anticipated the consequences of their power-laden supervisory roles and actions by utilizing the remaining conceptual categories in their conceptualization and practice of supervision. The ways in which they conceptualized the complexities of power included (a) Having Inordinate Power in the Supervisory Role; (b) Complexity of Power Manifesting in Identities and Statuses; (c) Having Responsibilities Within and Beyond the Supervision Relationship; (d) Managing Tensions Between Responsibility, Power, and Egalitarianism; (e) Empowering Supervisees. The model was illustrated by participants' own words. The conceptual model may be used to teach supervisors-in-training of an empirically derived FMC model of supervision and may be used to augment the practice of supervisors currently in practice. |
