Extensive education and training over a number of years is considered part of the “rights of passage” to becoming a mental health professional. However, the preparation of the formal study for a mental health practitioner is generally two fold:

1. Formal theories and observations that have previously been confirmed and replicated by research.
2. Training in the accompanying skills that have been developed by experienced practitioners over time.

Clinical supervision provides the safe environment in which counsellors can learn to blend these two strands of knowledge and begin to incorporate them into their own working counselling style.

As Bernard and Goodyear (1998) explain it, “Supervision is teaching that which occurs in the context of practice and provides a bridge between the campus and the clinic”. As mental health practitioners, we’re well aware of the importance of supervision. In this article, we’ll briefly explore common supervision models and theories.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Development Centre. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.