Developing the Four-Stage Supervision Model for Counselor Trainees

Abstract

Counseling using a collaborative process between counselor and client helps individuals adjust their problems in their life, facilitate lifestyle changes, and improve their quality of life (Carkhuff, 2000; Cormier & Hackney, 2008; Egan, 1975). On this point, mental health counselors should become more qualified in their field. Providing effective supervision during counselor education might be seen as an important cornerstone for the counselor trainees to become more qualified in counseling. (Aladag, 2013; Cormier & Hackney, 2008). As such, the need for an effective supervision service in a variety of settings is crucial. The counseling process conducted by counselors involved in effective supervised sessions can be seen as a process that enhances life quality and also contributes effectively to human development in all developmental domains. There are many different counseling skills that can help counselors conduct counseling sessions that are effective at improving clients' quality of life (Aladag, 2013; Carkhuff, 2000; Cormier & Hackney, 2008; Egan, 1975; Uslu & Ari, 2005).In the literature are many different types of counseling-skills classifications that are an essential part of the therapeutic process. According to Carkhuff (2000), personalizing meaning, the problem, and the goal are the necessary basic helping skills and sufficient for client change. Ivey, Ivey, Zalaquett, and Quirk (2010) have defined counseling micro-skills as basic helping skills that help clients solve the mental health issues in their life. The counseling micro-skills hierarchy provides a demonstration where alternative settings require different counseling skills starting from ethics, cultural competence, and wellness to determining personal style and theory. According to Cormier and Hackney (2008), a counselor should be able to use different counseling skills, ranging from basic and simple to more advanced and complex levels in the counseling profession. Additionally, the full range of skills needed for counseling is defined as basic counseling skills by Nelson-Jones (2003). The reflection of feeling, questioning, paraphrasing, and reframing might be given as an example for basic counseling skills that counselors need in order to conduct effective counseling (Nelson-Jones, 2003). Gerard Egan's skilled helper model (1975) provides a three-stage model in which each stage consists of specific counseling skills that the counselor uses to assist the client in clarifying or exploring thoughts. The skilled helper model consists of three fundamental stages covering different ranges of counseling skills to be used in counseling sessions. Based on all the classifications (Carkhuff, 2000; Cormier & Hackney, 2008; Egan, 1975; Ivey et al., 2010) mentioned above, one can say that the counseling process and counseling skills needed for use in counseling session differ from each other. Similar to differentiating skills classifications, teaching counseling skills to counselors or counselor trainees in counselor education also differs. Counselor educators help counselor trainees deal with the challenges they face in counseling sessions and help them effectively use their counseling skills in counseling sessions by using a different teaching method aimed at providing counselor trainees with the knowledge and skills to become effective counselors. When examining programs or training (Carkhuff, 2000; Hill, 2004; Hill & Kellems, 2002; Kagan, 1984; Meydan, 2014; Yaka, 2013) aimed at gaining confidence in the counseling profession and developing one's counseling skills, many programs are seen to be used for this purpose and to have an important place in counselor education. Counselor-education programs last for several years in Turkey like such countries as the US (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, 2009), Germany, Bulgaria (European Board for Certified Counselors, 2013). In Turkey, counselors are able to perform counseling after graduating from the Guidance and Psychological Counseling undergraduate program, which is why the overall quality of a bachelor degree program is expected to be at the highest possible level. …