Magister Artium - MA (Psychology) / The state of postgraduate studies in South Africa has come under renewed enquiry in recent years as concern is placed on the inconsistency between postgraduate enrolment and graduation rates. The discrepancy between the enrolment and completion rates is attributable to a range of factors. Literature identified the supervisory relationship as an important and significant factor in predicting completion. The establishment of a good working alliance in the beginning of the thesis process has been identified as a crucial task. As a result, it is useful to gain insight into how students set about establishing working relationships with new supervisors and how they rate the quality thereof. The present study was conducted with Psychology Masters students who were in their first semester of the first enrolment in the Community and Health Sciences faculty at the University of the Western Cape. Attachment theory provided the theoretical framework for the study as it posits that the quality of current relationships are a function of early relationship experiences. Thus students were thought to draw on earlier experiences when setting about establishing new relationships such as the supervisory relationship. The study was exploratory and descriptive in nature. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven eligible participants who have been selected purposively. Transcriptions have been subjected to a Thematic Analysis. Ethics clearance has been requested from and granted by the Senate Research Committee and all relevant ethics principles such as, confidentiality, anonymity, voluntary participation and informed consent, have been adhered to. Findings indicated that supervision was a central component for graduate completion, underscoring the importance of early supervisory sessions to form a strong working alliance. Furthermore, the findings indicated that the supervisor's role in providing the expertise and support largely contributed to the success of establishing strong and productive supervisory relationships. Participants perceived strong supervisory relationships as necessary to foster completion of higher degree requirements. The development of a new supervisory relationship activated relational patterns for students that underscored the importance of recognizing the supervisory relationship as a relationship.

This is the first known occupational therapy (OT) study to examine the emergent patterns of the client-therapist working alliance during the course of a community-based OT intervention. The experiences of both the adult client and OT in each of four dyads are explored and described as they relate to the evolution of the alliance over time and the impacting contextual factors. These experiences were considered alongside the therapy outcomes. Mixed methods, including quantitative scales and interviews, were used in this multiple-case study situated within a pragmatism paradigm. Individual case and cross case analyses were conducted leading to the identification of eleven cross case themes. These findings suggest that the interpersonal relationship between a client and OT develops with the goal of becoming a safe harbour for the clients. The strengthening interpersonal bond appears to create an impetus within the client to engage in therapeutic activities. This enticed engagement results in the client’s performance of novel activity purposefully selected by the OT as bearing personal meaning for the client. The clients’ engagement often results in enhanced insight into their abilities and meaningful functional gains. This success appears to reinforce and energize both the momentum toward the collaboratively-established therapy goals, as well as provides a positive feedback mechanism into the working alliance. The OT’s training, philosophy and skill, client’s attributes, and environmental influences (both physical and social) all appear to have potential implications upon the working alliance’s development and/or the therapeutic achievements. Further research will be needed to confirm or disconfirm these findings and may include further study with variable client populations (e.g., different ages, different conditions), the role of humour in the therapeutic process, the impact of client’s degree of social isolation on the alliance, as well therapists’ disparate levels of use-of-self and the related impacts upon the alliance.

The working alliance has received consistent empirical support relating the construct to psychotherapy outcome. There is no empirical research on any particular techniques that may prove useful at increasing the level of working alliance. In this study, the therapeutic compliment is defined, discussed, and compared with other therapeutic interventions to find its usefulness in therapy and its ability to impact the working alliance. 120 African-Americans from a large southwestern university and a medium southeastern university participated in this study by viewing one of six mock therapy sessions that had one of three different interventions: Therapeutic Compliment, Simple Compliment, and Advanced Accurate Empathy. The mock sessions were created to provide two levels of session relationship (high and low). The participants completed three measures, the Working Alliance Inventory, Hopefulness Scale, and Accurate Empathy Scale, to determine the perceptions of the different interventions. The study utilized multiple analyses of variances (ANOVAs) to compare the means of the three interventions.Statistical significance was not found with overall general working alliance scores from the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI). The individual subscales of the WAI, goals, tasks, and bonds, however; did reveal significance when comparing the interventions across one level of the session relationship (high). The interventions were not statistically different from each other in terms of perceived hopefulness and empathy. No significance was found when comparing the interventions with perceived hopefulness of outcome or level of perceived empathy. The implications from this study include a first look at the use of complimenting in therapy and a first attempt to analyze a specific technique to create an influence on the working alliance. Further research is still needed to understand which techniques are more beneficial at creating an affect on the working alliance.

This is the first known occupational therapy (OT) study to examine the emergent patterns of the client-therapist working alliance during the course of a community-based OT intervention. The experiences of both the adult client and OT in each of four dyads are explored and described as they relate to the evolution of the alliance over time and the impacting contextual factors. These experiences were considered alongside the therapy outcomes. Mixed methods, including quantitative scales and interviews, were used in this multiple-case study situated within a pragmatism paradigm. Individual case and cross case analyses were conducted leading to the identification of eleven cross case themes. These findings suggest that the interpersonal relationship between a client and OT develops with the goal of becoming a safe harbour for the clients. The strengthening interpersonal bond appears to create an impetus within the client to engage in therapeutic activities. This enticed engagement results in the client’s performance of novel activity purposefully selected by the OT as bearing personal meaning for the client. The clients’ engagement often results in enhanced insight into their abilities and meaningful functional gains. This success appears to reinforce and energize both the momentum toward the collaboratively-established therapy goals, as well as provides a positive feedback mechanism into the working alliance. The OT’s training, philosophy and skill, client’s attributes, and environmental influences (both physical and social) all appear to have potential implications upon the working alliance’s development and/or the therapeutic achievements. Further research will be needed to confirm or disconfirm these findings and may include further study with variable client populations (e.g., different ages, different conditions), the role of humour in the therapeutic process, the impact of client’s degree of social isolation on the alliance, as well therapists’ disparate levels of use-of-self and the related impacts upon the alliance.

This is the first known occupational therapy (OT) study to examine the emergent patterns of the client-therapist working alliance during the course of a community-based OT intervention. The experiences of both the adult client and OT in each of four dyads are explored and described as they relate to the evolution of the alliance over time and the impacting contextual factors. These experiences were considered alongside the therapy outcomes. Mixed methods, including quantitative scales and interviews, were used in this multiple-case study situated within a pragmatism paradigm. Individual case and cross case analyses were conducted leading to the identification of eleven cross case themes. These findings suggest that the interpersonal relationship between a client and OT develops with the goal of becoming a safe harbour for the clients. The strengthening interpersonal bond appears to create an impetus within the client to engage in therapeutic activities. This enticed engagement results in the client’s performance of novel activity purposefully selected by the OT as bearing personal meaning for the client. The clients’ engagement often results in enhanced insight into their abilities and meaningful functional gains. This success appears to reinforce and energize both the momentum toward the collaboratively-established therapy goals, as well as provides a positive feedback mechanism into the working alliance. The OT’s training, philosophy and skill, client’s attributes, and environmental influences (both physical and social) all appear to have potential implications upon the working alliance’s development and/or the therapeutic achievements. Further research will be needed to confirm or disconfirm these findings and may include further study with variable client populations (e.g., different ages, different conditions), the role of humour in the therapeutic process, the impact of client’s degree of social isolation on the alliance, as well therapists’ disparate levels of use-of-self and the related impacts upon the alliance.

No description available.

In the counseling profession, clinical supervision is utilized to facilitate the personal and professional development of counselors in training (Bernard and Goodyear, 2014). Within this supervisory relationship, supervisors must adhere to the 2015 ACA Code of Ethics, which describes the need for infusing cultural competence into both counseling and supervision practices. This emphasis is warranted; as the population of the United States is growing more diverse and cultural sensitivity in counseling will be needed in order to best serve clients. Both qualitative and quantitative research in various allied fields and settings suggest that supervisor cultural competence positively impacts the supervision working alliance (i.e., Ladany, Brittan-Powell and Pannu, 1997; Ancis and Marshall, 2010; Wong, Wong and Ishiyama, 2013). However, research conducted from the perspective of supervisors working in community settings is limited. This study sampled 78 community supervisors to address the dearth in the counselor education literature concerning the relationships between supervisor cultural competence and the working alliance. Results indicated an overall positively correlated relationship between supervisor multicultural competence and the working alliance. Additionally, the results suggested that supervisor cultural knowledge and supervisor cultural skills are the greatest predictors of a strong working alliance, while supervisor multicultural relationship and supervisor multicultural awareness accounted for some additional variance. The results support the trend away from a competency-based model of cultural sensitivity and attention in counseling and toward a model of cultural humility. / Ph. D.

Perfectionism in the counselor trainee has the potential to undermine counseling self-efficacy and relationships with client and supervisor (Arkowitz, 1990). Perfectionism is defined as “a predilection for setting extremely high standards and being displeased with anything less” (Webster’s II New College Dictionary, 1995, p. 816). In this study, 143 counselor trainees and 46 supervisors (46 supervisor-trainee dyads) completed surveys designed to assess the relationships between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism and counseling self-efficacy, the working alliance between supervisor and trainee, as well as the working alliance between trainee and client. Trainee participants completed the Almost Perfect Scale – Revised (Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001), the Self-Efficacy Inventory (Friedlander & Snyder, 1983), the Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory – Trainee Version (Efstation, Patton & Kardash, 1990) and the Working Alliance Inventory – Short Form Therapist Version (Horvath, 1991). Supervisor participants completed the Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory – Supervisor Version (Efstation, Patton & Kardash, 1990). Results indicated that maladaptive perfectionism was positively correlated with working alliance between trainee and client (r = -.261, p = .002) and positively correlated with the working alliance between supervisor and trainee (from the perspective of the supervisor, r = -.345, p = .019). Results also demonstrated evidence for counseling self-efficacy as a significant moderator between adaptive perfectionism and the supervisory working alliance (from the perspective of the trainee) and between maladaptive perfectionism and the supervisory working alliance (from the perspective of the supervisor). Supervisors should consider perfectionism in counselor trainees as this may affect counseling self-efficacy and working alliances between supervisor and trainee as well as between trainee and client.

Counselor trainees’ stress and coping resources have the potential to influence the relationships formed with supervisors and clients. Two hundred thirty two (N = 232) Master-level counselor trainees completed surveys designed to measure perceived stress, coping resources, the working alliance, and the supervisory working alliance. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the Working Alliance Inventory – Short Form Therapist Version (WAI-S; Tracey & Kokotovic, 1989), the Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory – Trainee Version (SWAI-T; Efstation, Patton, & Kardash, 1990), the Perceived Stress Scale – Short Form (PSS; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983), and the Coping Resources Inventory for Stress – Short Form (CRIS; Curlette & Matheny, 2008). The working alliance was negatively correlated with Perceived Stress (r = -.25, p < .01) and positively correlated with the coping resources Situational Control, (r = .23, p < .01), Emotional Control (r = .18, p = .01), Social Support From Family (r = .19, p < .01), Mental Tension Control (r = .18, p < .01), and Making Plans (r = .15, p < .05). The supervisory working alliance was negatively correlated with Perceived Stress (r = -.23, p < .01) and positively correlated with the coping resources Situational Control (r = .17, p < .01), Emotional Control (r = .18, p < .01), Social Support From Friends (r = .14, p < .05), Mental Tension Control (r = .22, p < .01), Asserting One’s Rights (r = .13, p < .05), and Trusting Oneself (r = .14, p < .05). After controlling for the primary internship setting, Stress (∆R2 = .055, â = -.21, p < .001) and Social Support from Family (∆R2 = .021, â = -.21, p < .025) explained 7.6% of the variance in the working alliance, F (10, 221) = 3.71, p < .001. After controlling for the number of counseling sessions and total number of weekly individual counseling hours, Perceived Stress (∆R2 = .047, â = -.14, p < .10) and Situational Control (∆R2 = .026, â = .18, p < .025) explained 7.3% of the variance in the supervisory working alliance, F (4, 170) = 7.73, p < .001. Implications for counselor training and implications for research are discussed.

No description available.