An investigation of group supervision process of "İndividual counseling practice course": A case study

The purpose of this research was to describe how the group supervision process was conducted within the scope of the practicum and to determine the effective and ineffective components of group supervision process through analyzing both the supervisors' and counselor candidates' experiences. In this case study, the unit of analysis was determined as the group supervision process within the scope of practicum. The participants of the study involved 16 counselor cadidates and four supervisors. A semi-structured interview form, online diaries, a supervision scale and some supervision forms were used as data collection tools. The data collection process continued throughout the 14-week supervision process. The findings gathered through the content analysis revealed that group supervision was carried out in four stages: (a) the forming phase, (b) preparation for practice, (c) practice phase, and (d) termination. For each phase, the focus of supervision, the roles of counselor candidates and supervisors, the supervision techniques used, the evaluation process and the supervisory relationship were defined. The findings disclosed the participants' overall evaluations of group supervision. According to the results, the factors found ineffective in the supervision were the long duration of the supervision sessions, ineffective use of time/lack of time, delayed feedback, ineffective use of self-report technique, supervisors' negative feedback, lack of peer feedback in group supervision, and having a large number of clients. The factors deemed effective by the participants were the use of role plays in supervision, getting feedback, establishing a secure relationship with the supervisor, supervisors' watching the videos before supervision sessions and the homogeneity of the supervision group. The counselor candidates' scores on the supervision scale revealed their satisfaction with the supervision. It was observed that the factors of the supervisory relationship were important for the counselor candidates' supervision satisfaction. According to the results, supervision boosted the self-efficacy of counselor candidates, raised their self-awareness, helped them to realize the effectiveness of the profession and to develop professional identity. In order to make supervision more effective, the suggestions offered by the participants were to increase the use of role play technique, to monitor video recordings in supervisory sessions, to work with fewer clients, and transcript each counseling session, to conduct the supervision in two days due to long duration of sessions, to reduce the number of counselor trainees in the group, to structure the use of time in the group, to provide recording facilities in the counseling rooms that were used for practices to implement supervision in two semesters, to provide information about client conceptualization. These findings were discussed in the light of the relevant literature and suggestions were given to supervisors and researchers.