Premium
Practising counsellors’ identity salience in clinical supervision
Author(s) -
Jones Connie T.,
Welfare Laura E.,
Cook Ryan
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
counselling and psychotherapy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.38
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1746-1405
pISSN - 1473-3145
DOI - 10.1002/capr.12402
Subject(s) - salience (neuroscience) , salient , psychology , ethnic group , sexual orientation , social psychology , identity (music) , cultural humility , cultural identity , variety (cybernetics) , social identity theory , nationality , context (archaeology) , psychotherapist , cultural competence , sociology , pedagogy , social group , political science , feeling , paleontology , physics , artificial intelligence , anthropology , acoustics , computer science , law , cognitive psychology , biology , immigration
Abstract Counsellors are called to appreciate variety within human experience and culture (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions, 2018). Similarly, counselling and psychotherapy supervisors who support the ongoing development of supervisees are tasked with understanding supervisees in their own cultural context. Supervisees and supervisors bring their own social and cultural identities into the supervisory space. In this study of 94 supervisees, the researchers sought to explore which social or cultural identity supervisees named as most salient in the supervisory relationship and whether the salient identity was one of minoritised or marginalised status. Gender, religion, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation or nationality was often listed as most salient. Further, individuals who identified with a minoritised/marginalised race/ethnicity, nationality or sexual orientation were likely to list that identity as most salient in their supervisory relationship. Implications include the importance of respectful inquisitiveness and supervisor readiness to consider a variety of salient social and cultural identities. Given many of these identities are invisible or ambiguous, supervisors who display cultural humility may be best positioned to provide culturally competent supervision.