Qualitative Study On Ethical Issues During Supervision

Clinical supervision is an important way to promote the professional competence, andis accepted as a necessary part of the training programme which is widely used amongpsychological therapists. However, there is no code of ethics for supervision in China. Inthis study, supervisor perspective was applied to explore the ethical situation experiencedby the supervisors, to figure out their understandings of supervision ethics and how torepond to such situations, further more, to provide valuable information for drafting thecode of ethics for supervision.A qualitative study with in-depth interview was applied in this study. The interviewoutline was designed on the basis of the researches on psychological counseling andpsychotherapy, experience of supervision practice and the purpose of this research. All ofthe six interviewees were registered supervisors of Clinical and Counseling PsychologyRegistration System of Chinese Psychological Society, and had been psychotherapists orcounselors for more than twenty years. The audio recorded was transcribed and thetranscript was analyzed using category analysis method. The results were:（1）All the supervisors were experienced in supervision. Ethical issues of thesupervisory process included competency of the supervisor, multi-relationships,responsibilities of protecting supervisees and the frame of supervision.（2）When referred to supervision ethics, the supervisors also considered to point outthe unethical behaviors of supervisees as supervision ethics. For example, some supervisorsfound the supervisees broke the boundaries between counselors and clients. Besides, thesupervisors also took this situation as unethical when the supervisees were influenced bytheir personal issues during the counseling process.（3）Special ethical issues and ethical dilemmas in supervision were: The same casewas supervised by different supervisors, dilemma of cross-theoretical supervision, anddilemma when encountered with the incompetent supervisees. Dilemma caused by the lackof ethical codes when faced with the unethical behaviors of the supervisees was alsomentioned. The interviewed supervisors held different views on the ethical codes in Chinaand gave suggestions for the revise of the code of ethics.