Discrimination Model

While some clinicians work wholely in a particular model and feel they need supervision in that model, other clinicians view themselves as "eclectic" or "integrative",and require a more flexible approach to supervision.

Some models of supervision were designed to be used with therapists of multiple therapeutic orientation.

The Discrimination Model(Bernard & Goodyear,1992)is one such approach. They advocate giving attention to three supervisory roles with three areas of focus.
 * Supervisors might take on a role of "teacher" when they directly lecture, instruct, and inform the supervisee.
 * Supervisors may act as "counselors" when they assist supervisees in identifying their own "blind spots" or countertransference process etc.
 * Supervisors can act in a "consultant" role to collegues when offering supportive guidance.

The purpose of defining these three roles clearly is to ensure clear boundaries are placed around the role to avoid role ambiguity. For example, the purpose of adopting a "counselor" role in supervision is the identification of unresolved issues clouding a therapeutic relationship. If these issues require ongoing counseling, supervisees should pursue such work with their own therapists rather than drift into this with their supervisor.

The Discrimination Model also highlights three areas of focus for skill building:


 * "Process issues" examine how technical aspects of the therapeutic process are handled. For example, is the supervisee reflecting the client's emotion accurately, or offering appropriate interpretations at the right time.


 * "Conceptualization issues" include how well supervisees formulate cases from theory and how well they convey this.They also focus on thinking about how to proceed on the basis of a clear understanding of the theoretical background.


 * "Personalization issues" focus on how therapists use their own experiences, thoughts and feelings in in therapy.  This is to help practitioners to be  nondefensively present in the therapy, aware of their own feelings, of their impact on the client and able to use this information as the session unfolds.

The Discrimination Model is primarily a training model focusing on enabling the supervisor more clearly to think about the supervisees needs and to meet them out of a variety of theoretical frameworks.

Key texts – Books
Bernard, J. M., Goodyear, R. K. (1992). Fundamentals of clinical supervision. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.