The effect of the Peer Group Supervision Program on psychological counseling skills, self-efficiency, therapeutic alliance and psychological flexibility

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the Peer Group Supervision Program (PGSP), which was developed to be used in applied courses such as Counseling Practice with Individuals 1 and 2, on counseling skills, counseling self-efficacy, therapeutic alliance and psychological flexibility levels of counselor candidates. Pre-test-post-test-follow-up test control group experimental design was used in the study. The study group of the research was formed among psychological counselor candidates who were in the final year of the Guidance and Psychological Counseling undergraduate program. The study was started with 11 counselor candidates in the experimental group and 14 counselor candidates in the control group and the research was terminated without any loss of subjects at any stage of the research. A 15-session Peer Group Supervision Program was applied to the experimental group. The data were collected through the Counseling Skills Scale (CSS), Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES), Therapeutic Alliance Scale Therapist Form (TIS-TF), Psychological Flexibility Scale (PFS) and Personal Information Form. In order to examine the effectiveness of the Peer Group Supervision Program, the data obtained from the experimental and control groups were analyzed with Mann Whitney U test, Friedman test and Wilcoxon signed rank tests. In all analyses where the difference between the mean scores was found to be significant, the effect size of this difference was calculated. As a result of the study, it was found that the Peer Group Supervision Program developed within the scope of the research was a highly effective program in developing counseling skills, counseling self-efficacy, therapeutic alliance and psychological flexibility levels of counselor candidates. In the follow-up measurements conducted six months later, it was seen that the effectiveness of the supervision program continued.