Ethical practices in individual supervision of counseling in China / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the ethical practices in individual supervision of counseling in China.Method:Forty-one graduate students and 38 participants of the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA) were included in this study.The Ethical Practices in Supervision Scale (EPSS) was used for the investigation.The scale included two parts.The first part was to investigate supervisors'ethical practices,and the second part focused on supervisees'impact from unethical supervisors.Results:The findings showed that 7 out of 28 items in the scale were significantly different between two groups.CAPA participants' supervisors performed better than graduate students' supervisors (P ＜ 0.05) in supervision scheduling,ethics discussion,and counselor/therapist role.Graduate students' supervisors performed better than CAPA participants' supervisors (P ＜ 0.05) in live supervision,audio/video review,informing clients of supervisee's status as trainee,and supervision contract.If individuals experience their supervisors being unethical or unprofessional,more than 55 percent of the individuals responded to negatively affect their thoughts toward their supervisor and the supervisory alliance,and almost 50 percent of the individuals responded to negatively impact their emotion and quality of their counseling for clients.Conclusion:Both graduate students and CAPA participants respond that their supervisors perform well in both monitoring supervisees' performance and maintaining appropriate boundaries.However,both of them should work more on reviewing video or audiotapes of supervisees' sessions regularly.