SUPERVISORS' INFLUENCE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOTHERAPIST TRAINEES (THEORETICAL ORIENTATION, VALUES).

Abstract

Supervision of psychotherapy constitutes a major component of the professional training undertaken by individuals pursuing careers in clinical psychology. The empirical literature has only recently begun to address the impact which supervision has on the development of its recipients. The present study explored relationships between changes in the theoretical orientations and personal values of therapist trainees and the theoretical orientations and values of the training faculty who provided them with supervision during a one year training program. Trainee theoretical orientation and personal values were assessed at the beginning and at the end of the training program for three successive training years, yielding a trainee sample N of 16. Follow-up assessment of theoretical orientation was obtained from this sample three to five years after they had completed this one year program. Background characteristics assessed included measures of personality functioning, locus of control and prior clinical experience. Parallel data were collected from 11 supervisory faculty. Regression analyses assessed the extent to which changes in trainee orientations and values could be predicted on the basis of the perspectives held by their supervisors. Trainees were found to enter the program with a positive bias toward psychoanalytic and experiential forms of therapy and a negative bias toward cognitive-behavioral therapy. Through the follow-up assessment this psychoanalytic orientation was maintained and consolidated. Trainees also became more accepting of cognitive-behavioral treatment and less supportive of experiential therapy. While supervisors' orientations were generally found to be unrelated to changes in trainee orientation during the training period, follow-up data suggested that supervisors had influenced the orientations currently held by former trainees. Changes in orientation were found to be unrelated to trainee background characteristics or level of prior clinical experience. Current findings suggested that trainee perceptions of supervisors' influence were related to supervisor status within the training program. Trainees entered the program with value systems that were similar to those of their supervisors. These values did not change substantially during the course of training. Trainee personality characteristics were more frequent predictors of those value changes which did occur than were supervisor values.