A Qualitative Investigation of Supervisees' Experiences of Triadic Supervision

Journal of Counseling & Development ■ Fall2009 ■ Volume87 449©2009bytheAmericanCounselingAssociation.Allrightsreserved.

It is well established that clinical supervision is among the most effective methods for helping counselors to build skills and develop professionally (Bernard & Goodyear, 2004). The clini-cal supervisor is responsible for protecting the client’s welfare, teaching clinical conceptualization and counseling skills, foster-ing supervisee self-awareness, and evaluating the supervisee. Thus, the supervision process, particularly in counselor training programs, is central to counselors’ development.

With its 2001 revisions, the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) added triadic supervision to the list of approved clinical supervi-sion modalities, along with individual and group supervision. Triadicsupervision is described by CACREP as two supervisees working with one supervisor, in a process that involves all three members simultaneously (CACREP, 2001). There appear to be a number of benefits to using triadic supervision, but there are also potential challenges that should be considered. When introducing any new supervision modality, care must be taken to preserve the essential aspects of the supervision process. A review of the literature, however, reveals little research on this particular supervision structure. Our aim, therefore, was to address this gap by examining the experiences of supervisees who have participated in triadic supervision. Following a review of the literature, we describe the context for the study and the method used. We then discuss the findings and examine several implications of these findings for clinical supervision.

Review of the LiteratureIn our review of the literature relevant to triadic supervision, we examined the empirical studies that have been conducted to date. Recently, Stinchfield, Hill, and Kleist (2007) detailed the preliminary findings on their Reflective Model of Triadic Supervision. The authors noted some of the benefits of triadic supervision, as reported by supervisees: the multiple perspec-tives in feedback, vicarious learning opportunities, a more

comfortable atmosphere as compared to group supervision, and some insight into providing feedback themselves. The authors also identified some of the challenges of triadic supervision, as far as supervisees’ difficulty with providing critical feedback to the supervision peer and supervisees’ discomfort when the peer assumed the observer role and gave feedback.

Newgent, Davis, and Farley (2005) evaluated the perceptions of 15 student supervisors who participated in combinations of individual, triadic, and group supervision-of-supervision. The participants rated their supervisory experiences using the Working Alliance Inventory (Horvath, 1984), Supervisory Working Alliance Inventory (Efstation, Patton, & Kardash, 1990), Supervision Styles Inventory (Friedlander & Ward, 1984), and the Supervision of Supervision and Evaluation (Newgent, 2002). The authors concluded that supervisors in training perceived triadic supervision as similar to individual supervision with regard to the working alliance, supervisory leadership style, relationship dynamics, and satisfaction with supervision. These findings suggest that individual and triadic supervision may be more alike than different in how they are experienced by student supervisors.

Unpublished studies by Bakes (2005) and Nguyen (2004) have also examined several facets of triadic supervision. Nguyen found that counselor effectiveness did not vary ac-cording to the type of supervision, whether split-focus triadic supervision in which two supervisees each received half of the attention during any given session, or single-focus triadic supervision in which two supervisees received exclusive atten-tion during alternate weeks. Supervisee developmental level varied across both types of supervision. Bakes examined the working alliance between supervisors and supervisees who received triadic supervision and found that triadic supervision assisted supervisees in understanding their clients and mini-mized the supervisee’s identification with the supervisor.

Our review of the literature revealed only a small number of studies of triadic supervision, and important aspects of this

Gerard Lawson, CounselorEducationProgram,Serge F. Hein, EducationalResearchandEvaluationProgram,andCarolyn L. Stuart, CounselorEducationProgram,allatVirginiaPolytechnicInstituteandStateUniversity(VirginiaTech).CarolynL.StuartisnowatCounselingServices,HalifaxCommunityCollege.TheauthorsgratefullyacknowledgethesupportreceivedfromaCollegeofLiberalArtsandHumanSciencesFacultyResearchGrantatVirginiaTech.CorrespondenceconcerningthisarticleshouldbeaddressedtoGerardLawson,EducationalLeadershipandPolicyStudies,VirginiaPolytechnicInstituteandStateUniversity,310EastEgglestonHall(0302),Blacksburg,VA24061(e-mail:[email protected]).

A Qualitative Investigation of Supervisees’ Experiences of Triadic SupervisionGerard Lawson, Serge F. Hein, and Carolyn L. Stuart

Althoughtriadicsupervisionhasexistedforsometime,fewstudieshavefocusedonthisformofsupervisionoritsef-fectiveness.Inthisqualitativestudy,theexperiencesof6master’s-levelstudentsfromacounseloreducationprogramwhoparticipatedassuperviseesintriadicsupervisionwereexploredusingin-depth,open-endedinterviews.Thedataanalysisresultedin5majorcategories,whicharediscussed.Implicationsofthefindingsforclinicalsupervisionandfurtherresearcharealsoaddressed.

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supervision modality remain unexamined. The general aim of qualitative inquiry is to understand a phenomenon from the perspective of those who have experienced it, including the meanings that they assign to those experiences. Qualitative methodology, therefore, seemed particularly well suited for use in this study. Moreover, given the paucity of research on triadic supervision, a qualitative approach can be valuable in generat-ing important insights about this phenomenon that can then be examined further in subsequent qualitative or quantitative research. Thus, we sought to answer the research question What are the experiences of supervisees in triadic supervision?

Context for the StudyTriadic supervision is the primary clinical supervision modal-ity in a counselor education program at a large mid-Atlantic public university. Students in the master’s-degree program can choose a concentration in either school counseling or community counseling and are required to complete both a practicum and an internship during the course of their training. The practicum involves 100 hours of practice in the university’s clinic and in local public schools; the internship consists of 600 hours of practice in either a public school or a community counseling agency setting. Beginning in the practi-cum, counseling students receive weekly group supervision with a faculty member and weekly triadic supervision with a doctoral student who is under the supervision of the faculty member. This same format continues during the student’s internship, with the addition of on-site individual supervision that is provided by an internship site supervisor.

The doctoral-level students who serve as supervisors in triadic supervision reflect a variety of backgrounds, person-ally and professionally. A requirement of students entering the doctoral program is that they have at least 2 years of prior clinical experience, and all of the supervisors in triadic supervi-sion have significantly more experience than this. Although the supervisors as a group may use a variety of counseling theories in their own clinical work, the supervision model that they are trained to use is strongly developmental. The training program also involves the ongoing use of supervision-of-supervision to monitor the supervisors’ work during triadic supervision.

The format of the triadic supervision follows a structure that has been developed by faculty members at the above-mentioned university. Students are paired with a supervision peer on the basis of factors such as developmental level (skill level, internal versus external motivation, level of abstract thinking); personality factors; and, at times, practi-cal considerations such as geographic location, schedule availability, and training track. The pairs are then matched with a supervisor.

The triad meets each week for approximately 1 hour, and time is allotted to each of the supervisees. At the begin-ning of the supervision meeting, time is given to one of the supervisees to provide a brief “check-in” to follow up on his or her counseling sessions for the previous week and to

present any immediate counseling-related or other concerns, which are then addressed by the triad. The second supervisee, however, is the main focus of the supervision meeting and presents a segment of a videotaped counseling session that he or she has chosen. Supervisees are asked to choose a seg-ment of a counseling session in which they feel they either did well or struggled.

The triad views approximately 15 minutes of the counseling tape (this length may vary from triad to triad), and the supervisor and the other supervisee then address the presenting supervisee’s questions or other requests and provide various forms of feedback. Feedback is given at the end, and oftentimes at specific points during, the videotaped segment and is normally also followed by more general discussion by all triad members of issues raised by the videotape and/or feedback. This sequence of activities is repeated during each week of the practicum or internship, with supervisees alternating in the two roles described previously. It should also be emphasized that supervisors work to actively engage both supervisees in the supervision process, and specific strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of the triadic structure are part of each supervisor’s training and supervision.

MethodParticipants were selected from current master’s-level students in the previously mentioned counselor education program who had experience as a supervisee within the triadic form of supervision. Students who had completed a practicum or both a practicum and an internship were eligible for participation in the study. After ethical approval was obtained to conduct the study, students who were enrolled in several of the counselor education courses were solicited for participation. They were instructed to contact the second author if they were interested in participating in the study. The sample consisted of 1 White male and 5 White female students. The average age of the par-ticipants was 34.5 years, with an age range of 24 to 48 years. An equal number of participants were enrolled in the community counseling and school counseling specializations. At the time of the interviews, 4 participants had completed both a practicum and an internship and 2 had completed only a practicum.

The data for this study were collected using in-depth, open-ended qualitative interviews. We used a general inter-view guide approach (Patton, 2002), which does not involve formulating specific interview questions in advance. Instead, a list of various aspects of the phenomenon is developed and serves as a checklist to ensure that all of the issues that have been identified are explored during the interview. The second author met with each participant in a neutral setting that was private and free of distractions or interruptions. The nature of the study, the research procedure, other elements of informed consent, and the general nature and purpose of the interview process were discussed during the meeting. Considerable attention was paid to developing a high level of rapport with each participant, because this is of primary importance for collecting credible data (Becker, 1986; Osborne, 1990;

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Patton, 2002). All of the interviews were tape recorded for later transcription. Interviews with the participants ranged from 70 to 170 minutes, with an average length of 2 hours.

A form of whole text analysis was used that is consistent with several common analytic procedures (e.g., Bogdan & Biklen, 2002; Miles & Huberman, 1994). After becoming familiar with each transcript, a line-by-line approach was used to identify (i.e., excerpt) segments of text that were revealing of an aspect of the participant’s experience of triadic supervision. Each excerpt was then assigned one or more coding categories that captured the meaning of the excerpt. A subsequent stage of the analysis involved refining the categories and, where relevant, developing subcategories. During the coding stage of the analysis, a form of check coding (e.g., Miles & Huberman, 1994) was used, during which the second and third authors independently analyzed the interview transcripts for the first participant. Both members then shared their own efforts at excerpting and coding the data; when differences occurred, discussion was used to arrive at consensus. The third author then coded the remainder of the interview transcripts. A form of peer review or peer debriefing (Miles & Huberman, 1994) was used during this phase of the analysis. That is, the third author communicated regularly with the sec-ond author about her analysis of the data, including new coding categories and subcategories that emerged and any difficulties that were encountered during the coding process.

A final step in the analysis involved conducting a member check with each participant. They were given a draft version of the discussion of the findings and asked to provide feedback about both its accuracy and completeness in capturing their experiences of triadic supervision. All of the participants gave feedback, with half of them offering specific suggestions for changes to the discussion. We considered that all of their sug-gestions were relevant and incorporated them, in their entirety, into our discussion of the findings.

ResultsThe analysis generated five major categories, which we discuss individually. Quoted material is presented in the form that it originally appeared in the interview transcript.

TriadicSupervisionAffordsLessTimeandAttentionforEachSupervisee

Many of the participants expressed how the structure of triadic supervision decreased the amount of supervision time that was available to them. They described how this structure afforded less time for them and their own counseling work to be the focus of the meeting. Presenting videotapes biweekly instead of weekly was seen as necessarily limiting the feedback that they received about their work with clients. For example, as Diane stated,

Hum, you know, within three [people in supervision] you’ve got to switch up and, you know, [present] every other week. And that’s a long time when you’re seeing, you know, clients week after week after week and you’re only showing a tape

every 2 weeks—if that—because of breaks [during the school term] and so forth.

Moreover, for Diane, the presence of a second supervisee was constraining even during those weeks when it was her turn to present a videotape. More specifically, the time needed by the other supervisee to provide feedback about the videotape was seen as limiting the amount of videotape that could be covered during the supervision meeting.

And, hum, my one concern was that, was I would have loved to have watched a whole tape or a whole session instead of just the 10 or 20 minutes, hum, because not once was I really able to show an opening and closing. I think I did show a closing once but I never got to show, like, the whole tape or the whole session, which normally lasted anywhere from 30 to, to 45, 50 minutes. . . . I think [that in one-on-one supervision, there is] just overall, more, more time. Like, maybe you could watch a tape longer because you only had one person to interact with, hum, instead of getting feedback from two people.

It is important to emphasize that the reduced time for each supervisee within triadic supervision was not viewed nega-tively by all participants. In fact, several of the participants viewed this issue as a positive aspect of triadic supervision because it meant that they were not required to engage in the work of preparing materials and presenting a videotape weekly. For example, Brenda stated,

Based on having a pretty intensive program, it was nice not to have to be the person on the hot seat every week, and not to be doing the . . . kind of paperwork and the other pieces to prepare to be the presenter.

SuperviseeCompatibilityIsCrucialtotheSuccessofTriadicSupervision

Most of the participants emphasized, in various ways, the key role played by the level of compatibility between supervisees in determining the ultimate success of triadic supervision. They viewed that the degree of compatibility with a supervi-sion peer was dependent on a variety of factors, including personality, counseling orientation/style, counseling skill level, previous counseling experience, gender, perceived level of motivation or investment in the counseling program, or level of openness during supervision meetings.

Some of the participants referred specifically to the matching process, and several focused on the considerable effort made by faculty members to achieve a high level of compatibility be-tween supervision peers. The matching of supervisees was seen as involving a consideration of such factors as age, previous counseling experience, and degree of compatibility in work-ing together in other parts of the counseling program. Brenda provided the following perspective on the process of matching supervisees for triadic supervision during her practicum.


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In terms of our match as kind of peers, I think there was a lot of effort put into who would be in which group. And we had worked together before and so I think we were viewed as folks who worked well together—similar ages, similar amount of work experience. And so, in those ways we’re a very good fit. And [I] kind of sometimes feel like there’s less of a stretch for me relating, hum, in terms of our counseling experience.

In addressing the issue of matching supervisees, several of the participants also stated that there were some students in their program with whom they would not have wanted to be paired.

Some of the participants perceived a number of positive out-comes regarding the good match with their supervision peer. These outcomes included greater comfort during supervision meetings, greater openness and genuineness with the supervision peer, greater trust in the supervision peer, and a lack of defensiveness or feeling threatened when receiving feedback from the supervi-sion peer. For example, the following description makes clear how Brenda’s level of comfort and openness with a supervision peer was influenced by her degree of compatibility with that person.

hum, the student who I was paired with in the internship triad I felt was my equal in the [counseling] class. And I felt a greater opportunity to learn from her than I did from this other student [in the practicum supervision]. And it wasn’t that it was void of learning experiences, but I felt like we were coming at counseling from a different perspective, hum, different intentions in terms of being in the program, hum, different level of openness to what we were learning. . . . hum, and I think I tend to be more comfortable and more open when I’m around somebody who I know is coming from the same place, more inhibited with somebody where, you know, their interest may be less.

As is evident in the preceding description, some participants also emphasized the negative consequences associated with a poor supervisee match. A variety of negative outcomes were seen as arising from low compatibility with a supervision peer, including less learning, less openness or self-disclosure with the peer, less communication with the peer, greater care in giving feedback to the peer, and more difficulty receiving feedback from the peer.

TriadicSupervisionIntroducesNewFeedbackDynamics

The participants both received and gave feedback to the supervi-sion peer and the supervisor during triadic supervision. Most of the participants valued the feedback they received from their supervision peer, even when it went beyond areas of strength and dealt with areas for improvement. They also felt that they could count on their peer for genuine feedback. For example, Rachel stated,

I think she would give me her very, very bottom, honest opinion of what . . . what she thought. I don’t think she had any other hidden agenda or thought, “Oh, you know, I need to only tell

her good things.” Or, and she would say exactly what she thought, both positive and negative. And it was . . . presented in a nice, nice way so it was easy to hear, and, hum, you know, and accept. Even the critical part was, you know, it was very easy to hear that and say, you know, be able to say, “Oh, you know that really is a good idea. No, I didn’t think about that. And, yeah, that probably would have been a better way to handle this.” So it was, it was good. It was good, good communication that way.

As much as participants appreciated their supervision peer’s feedback, there were also occasions when providing the peer with feedback was challenging. In such instances, supervisees experi-enced a reluctance to deliver constructive negative feedback out of concern for the other supervisee. For some of these participants, this concern involved a desire to avoid hurting their partner’s feelings. For example, Sarah described how, in those instances, it became difficult to provide negative feedback at all:

I did feel on occasion that I had to be a little bit, a little bit careful with what I said because he, Chris did have a tendency to take things very personally. He didn’t take negative feedback as a criticism of, of a technique. He took it more as a criticism of him personally. So, I did feel that, unlike with other people that might be a little bit more open to, to hearing room for improvement I, I know that I, there were quite a few times where I felt like I kind of had to cater what I was saying to making sure that he didn’t feel bad about it afterwards. Or making sure that I wasn’t, that I . . . was making him understand that it wasn’t a reflection of him and it was just a technique thing or, something like that. So it was hard to give him negative feedback knowing that he was having a difficult time accepting it.

This reluctance on the part of participants to deliver negative feedback also had the potential to influence the nature of the other peer’s feedback, creating a situation in which neither supervisee was offering negative feedback to the other supervisee.

A related difficulty experienced by some of the participants centered on the issue of the supervisor’s feedback to individual supervisees. Difficulties were sometimes seen as arising when the supervisor gave positive feedback to one of the supervisees because it could negatively influence the other supervisee, often causing her or him to feel inadequate in some way. This process could, in turn, cause the recipient of the positive feedback to expe-rience discomfort. Steven, for example, described the pervasive-ness of this problem during the course of triadic supervision and how he experienced this dynamic from both perspectives:

I think that’s a tough thing for a supervisor to do, is to give the students, you know, when they do a good job, when it’s—at the same time not making others feel like that they’re, you know, inadequate or not being the one. . . . A couple times when he did it, sometimes he did it, I was the one that he was pointing out, saying, “Steven, you know, shoo. That, that was, that was pretty good. That was really, you know, a good thing there.”



And I was looking over my [shoulder at] the other student and I’m thinking, “Okay, uh, hope she doesn’t [feel badly],” you know? I mean it just made me feel uncomfortable that I was being praised in that situation.

Another dynamic experienced by some of the participants was the process of sometimes having to reconcile differing feedback received from two people and making it personally meaningful. Beyond offering supervisees an additional point of view, such situations also often prompted supervisees to begin to question their tacit assumption that there is only one correct way to ap-proach a particular counseling issue. For example, the following description reveals how conflicting feedback from a supervisor and the supervision peer resulted in Kathy’s realization of the perspectival nature of feedback.

I would say once again, I mean, just the opportunity to be able to get feedback from somebody else, a third person. ‘Cause I mean, I always, you know, looked at, “Well this person [i.e., supervisor] knows more than I do so they must know best.” But yet, having had somebody at my level and seeing that sometimes those opinions may be conflicting doesn’t mean my supervisor’s wrong or, you know, the other supervisee’s right, but it just, it has shown me that there are different ways, especially in counseling, to look at things.

SupervisionPeerProvidesOtherValuableFormsofLearning

In addition to the value that the participants placed on the feedback they received from their supervision peer, and the learning that resulted from it, they also saw their peer as an important source of information and learning in other supervision situations that did not involve receiving feedback. In this regard, all of the participants viewed their supervision peer as a valuable third perspective and source of new information during the supervision meetings. For example, the following excerpt reveals the high value that Kathy placed on the additional perspective afforded by the inclusion of a second supervisee, as well as the influence that this perspective had on her satisfaction with triadic supervision:

[I enjoyed triadic supervision] but, I mean, just once again, it’s just that other perspective. It’s just so valuable to be able to get that. And some things, you know, that I may not come up with myself, or that my supervisor may not come up with, but you have a third person who may be able to come up with it. So, I just, I really—I’ve enjoyed it.

Some of the participants also described more specific ways in which they gained new information from their supervision peer. Specifically, by observing videotapes of the peer’s counseling sessions and his or her discussion of those sessions within the supervision meetings, new forms of learning occurred through exposure to the peers’ clients, counseling techniques, and counsel-ing practice in general. This also included learning that resulted

from the peer bringing counseling materials, such as toys and games for working with specific child and adolescent populations, to the supervision meetings and discussing their use.

Beyond these specific forms of learning, some of the partici-pants also described how their supervision peer was a valuable source of new ideas and insights when brainstorming, both inside and outside of the supervision meetings, about various counseling issues, including options for working with specific clients. Rachel, for example, emphasized the value of having a peer with whom she could generate ideas and counseling options and how she enjoyed this aspect of triadic supervision more than any other:

Being able to do that [i.e., brainstorm] together and come up with, you know, just be really creative in our, in our ideas is much bet-ter than just a supervisor one-on-one because you still have the hierarchy there I think where, you know, you know you’re being watched by them and you know you’re being graded by them. Whereas you’re not being graded by your peers and you can be very open and honest. . . . Some things that I would never have thought of that she came up with and vice versa. It was, it was a lot of fun. And it was . . . and there were good ideas to take back and use and then come back later and say, you know, “Did they work? Did they not?”

It is important to add here that some of the participants also experienced various forms of observational and vicarious learning (e.g., Bandura, 1986) during triadic supervision. These forms of learning occurred in a variety of circumstances, some of which involved a focus on the supervision peer’s behavior alone. For example, by observing his supervision peers present counseling tapes in which they struggled the most with a client and/or showed their weakest counseling skills, Steven was encouraged to do the same with his own counseling tapes.

It was interesting because some students . . . I was inspired by some students that were actually showing, uh, tape that they considered to be bad tape. You know, they would say, “This is probably one of my worst counseling sessions I’ve had. I need help with this. I want you guys to help me with this ‘cause I’m, I’m lost.” And the courage that that took to do that. . . . There were a lot of times, because of the courage of the other students, uh, that I was able to say, “Okay, well, you know, if somebody else can show that they [laughing], you know, were struggling, I can do that.

Learning sometimes also arose from participants’ observations of interactions between the supervisor and the other supervisee. The fol-lowing excerpt reveals the powerful role that observing interactions between his supervisor and supervision peer played in the develop-ment of Steven’s understanding of a number of counseling skills, such as giving and receiving feedback and providing support.

The power of seeing, uh, another person interacting with someone else and you being that third person observing that is, you know, I mean, your attention is so focused on that interaction, I think . . .


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triadic supervision lends itself well to being able to, you know, to pick up on or appreciate that therapeutic use of the self or the supervisor’s par—how she was able to give feedback and provide support. Being able to witness that, see that.

SupervisionPeerProvidesVariousFormsofSupport

Most of the participants viewed their supervision peer as a valuable source of support, beyond the support provided by the supervisor. This peer support could be either intentional or unintentional dur-ing the course of triadic supervision. Moreover, the support could be overt, such as when it was associated with verbal comments or explicit feedback, or it could be more subtle. Participants some-times viewed specific interactions with their peer as supportive, but, often, the peer simply sharing his or her own experiences was seen as supportive. Most of the participants described the support that they received from their supervision peer as being overt and as focusing on the roles and challenges that they experienced as students. They also described how support for academic or other life challenges was sometimes mutual, with the support often focusing on issues of making specific career choices or balancing academic and family demands. For example, Brenda gave the following description of this process.

You know, we’d get to the room sometimes before the supervisor, plunk our stuff down, and, “How’s your week going?” Those, there were some very supportive moments there. Mutually supportive in terms of, “How’s it going for you?” or, “Are you surviving?” And recognizing we were both working people but also, you know, checking in with one another in terms of balancing family and work and school, all those things. . . . And you know those, feedback about where was all this gonna end up [after gradua-tion], um, that was extremely helpful at the time. You know, when things are kind of taking shape and sometimes other folks can see characteristics and tendencies more clearly than we can, um, about ourselves.

This description reveals not only how the supervision peers were able to support each another independently of the supervision process itself but also how a peer could be a valuable source of insight about her- or himself.

Beyond the direct support that supervision peers provided to one another as individuals, many of the participants also described forms of support that were prompted by various aspects of the supervisor–supervisee relationship. This support sometimes emerged as a result of the peer’s unique perspective, as reflected in the following account of how the supervision peer would often help to facilitate communication between Sarah and her supervisor:

I think a lot of times it was nice to have him [i.e., supervision peer]. If I was saying something, if she [i.e., supervisor] had given me feedback and I didn’t quite think that it was right for the situation, a lot of times Chris would understand where I was coming from

and maybe what I couldn’t get across to her, he would be able to clarify and say, “Oh, I know where she’s coming from. She means this and do this.” And so we were able to kind of bounce off of each other since we often kind of understood where the other was at with the client and things like that.

Many of the participants described how their supervision peer was also a source of other, more subtle forms of support. Sometimes this support was nonverbal, often involving various forms of eye contact.

Another subtle kind of support involved various forms of vali-dation provided by the supervision peer. Many of the participants described receiving such validation, and it emerged in a variety of contexts, including counseling work with clients, the supervi-sion process, and personal reactions to the supervisor’s feedback. Steven, for example, described the validation that he received from his supervision peer about the counseling work that he had done with particular clients.

It’s interesting ‘cause very often they [i.e., supervision peer] ended up feeling the struggle that you were feeling. And, and so it was very gratifying at the end, even though you were kind of concerned at first that they wouldn’t understand and that they were like, “I don’t understand what, what was so tough about that [client]. It wasn’t.” But, no, this, really it, it ended up being that they would say, normally, “Oh, man, Steven. I, I see what you’re talking about now. Man, ‘cause this person, they really were tough.”

DiscussionWe viewed a number of the previously discussed findings as par-ticularly significant to clinical supervision, and they are examined in greater detail in this section and discussed in relation to relevant literature. An important theme in the findings involves the con-straints imposed on individual supervisees by the structure of tri-adic supervision, namely, the presence of another supervisee in the supervision process. Whereas some participants were relieved that their work was not the focus of each week’s supervision session, many participants were concerned about this issue. The majority of the participants were concerned about receiving an adequate amount of time and feedback from their supervisor, which, in turn, meant that they were receiving less guidance with their ongoing work with clients. Frequency and quantity of attention in supervi-sion has been described as an environmental variable associated with good supervision (Allen, Szollos, & Williams, 1986). This issue may be a concern in using the triadic supervision structure, particularly when supervisees are at a relatively early stage in their counseling program or demonstrate weaker skills than their peers. In such cases, augmenting triadic supervision with some form of individual supervision may be most appropriate.

A second, and perhaps more central, theme in the findings is the issue of supervisee compatibility, including the process of matching supervisees in triadic supervision. What emerges from the findings is a recognition that a relatively high level of compatibility between supervision peers is necessary to achieve



fundamental elements of supervision, which, in turn, contribute to an effective supervision process. In contrast, a low level of com-patibility can result in varying degrees of impairment to both the process and outcomes of triadic supervision (e.g., more guarded communication with the peer, less openness or willingness to self-disclose, restricted feedback processes, reduced learning, a general struggle to have one’s needs met within the supervision structure). Given the considerable body of literature supporting the primacy of the supervision relationship (e.g., see Holloway, 1995; Ronnestad & Skovholt, 1993; Stoltenberg, McNeill, & Delworth, 1998; Worthen & McNeill, 1996), these findings are not surprising. What is important to recognize, however, is that in the triadic supervision structure, supervisees consider both the supervisor and the supervision peer in the relationship equation. They recognize the importance of both relationships and expect faculty supervisors to consider many factors, including supervisee preferences, when making triadic pairings.

Triadic supervision also introduces feedback dynamics that are not present in individual supervision; it also alters (and at times impairs) more familiar feedback processes. An important aspect of feedback in triadic supervision is the changes that can occur for the supervisor in the feedback process. When feedback is positive, the presence of another supervisee can mean that the supervisor has to temper her or his feedback to avoid generating self-doubt, feelings of inadequacy, or other forms of discomfort in the other supervisee. The problems associated with this situation may be compounded if the recipient of the feedback experiences discomfort as a result of recognizing how the peer may be affected by hearing this feedback. Balanced feedback must be provided, however, for the supervision process to function effectively. With-out feedback, particularly for beginning counselors, there is a seri-ous risk that errors will go uncorrected and that poor counseling habits will form (Westberg & Jason, 1993). It may be challenging, however, for the supervisor to give the required feedback, whether positive or negative. When supervision includes two supervisees the supervisor must be deliberate and structured in providing feedback and in managing the feedback process.

A second significant aspect of feedback in triadic supervision involves the nature of the feedback between supervision peers. Most of the participants viewed as valuable the positive and negative feedback they received from their peer, both within and outside the supervision meetings. Nevertheless, the supportive and trusting relationship noted previously sometimes made it difficult to provide constructive negative feedback. Moreover, this tendency could have the added negative effect of making the supervision peer unwilling to give negative feedback, thereby seriously im-pairing the supervisee feedback process. These dynamics parallel Farnill, Gordon, and Sansom’s (1997) finding that supervisors were often so concerned with maintaining the supervision relation-ship and protecting the supervisee’s self-esteem that their negative feedback was too vague to be effective. Similarly, it appears that supervisees may hedge when giving negative feedback, perhaps out of concern for the peer or out of a lack of confidence in their own insights and opinions.

A final aspect of feedback that we emphasize deals with the pro-cess of receiving feedback about a particular issue from two people and the need to sometimes deal with differing (and, at times, conflict-ing) suggestions or perspectives. When this occurs, supervisees are placed in the situation of having to make these differing perspec-tives meaningful for themselves and for their work with clients. These concerns can be viewed in several ways. On the one hand, conflicting feedback may run counter to the idea of consistent and clear feedback described by Freeman (1985). A lack of uniformity in feedback can also be confusing to a supervisee who is at an early stage of professional development, when the supervisee often assumes that a “right” answer exists. Alternatively, such confusion can be helpful to the supervisee because it causes her or him to recognize that feedback is inherently perspectival rather than absolute. Recognizing the relevance of the peer’s feedback may also help to decrease the supervisee’s reliance on the supervisor, thereby fostering greater self-efficacy.

Apart from the feedback that the supervision peer provided, he or she was also a valuable source of new information and represented an important third perspective during other parts of the supervision process. Of course, the perspective or information offered by a peer can be unavoidably absent from other supervi-sion formats, particularly individual supervision. In much the same way that widely differing feedback can be generated in triadic supervision, the supervision peer may offer entirely unique insights. Observational and vicarious forms of learning (e.g., see Bandura, 1986; Hosford, 1980) were also an important facet of the peer’s contribution in this regard. Through their peer, supervisees were able to gain exposure to new client populations, counseling techniques, and solutions to counseling issues. Of equal impor-tance, seeing their peer take risks in the counseling setting or the supervision setting, for example, could inspire supervisees to take similar risks.

A final significant theme involves the various forms of support available through the supervision peer. In the present study, that sup-port was either intentional or unintentional and, therefore, had the benefit of maximizing the support available to the other supervisee. It could also be overt, such as when the peer focused specifically on the other supervisee’s overall life circumstances or personal well-being. Peer support could also be more subtle, as when it was nonverbal; more commonly, however, it occurred as validation of the other supervisee in various aspects of her or his supervision or counseling experience. Supervisees were able to have their experi-ences normalized by the peer and such validation can be crucial when a supervisee has concerns and anxiety about work with a specific client or about the supervision process itself. In the counseling of clients, peer validation can be invaluable because, for example, beginning counselors can be particularly self-critical and take on an unwarranted level of responsibility for client change (Blocher, 1983). Similarly, peer validation seems indispensable for ameliorating many supervisees’ concerns about their own behavior during supervision meetings or their reactions to the supervisor.

Supervisee support in supervision seems to be related in some ways to the importance of the supervision relationship overal. In


Lawson,Hein,&Stuart

Ellis’s (1991) review of critical incidents in supervision, lack of support was one of the most frequently cited problem areas for supervisees. Although that support was typically supervisor to supervisee, the peer-to-peer support that we describe seems similar to the support described in the peer supervision literature. Support from peers is, in fact, among the most highly valued aspects of peer supervision from the perspective of supervisees who participated in peer supervision groups (Benshoff, 1993; Crutchfield & Borders, 1997). One of the criticisms of peer su-pervision, however, is that supervisees can be overly supportive and not provide enough challenge to their partners (Borders, 1991). These hazards are less of a concern in leader-led peer supervision groups (Hiller & Rosenfield, 2000), which are more similar in structure to triadic supervision than are leaderless peer groups. Overall, it appears that there is a greater level of support available to supervisees in triadic supervision, with fewer of the potential pitfalls of less structured approaches.

Several limitations are also evident in the present study. Like most qualitative studies, this one involved a sample that has a particular context. The sample consisted entirely of White participants, and this may limit the transferability (i.e., generalizability) of our findings to other ethnic or racial groups. Moreover, the participants were master’s students from one counselor education program at a large, public, mid-Atlantic university. The nature of the program, including the structure of practica and other course work, may differ in some ways from other such programs and limit the transferability of the findings. Similarly, the structure of the triadic supervision used, which includes such factors as the specific length of the supervision meetings (1 hour), the program requirements for structuring the meetings themselves, and the provision of group supervision for the doctoral students who serve as triadic supervisors, may not necessarily be reflective of how triadic supervision is used in all other counseling programs. Although generalizability in qualitative research is normally established after the research has been completed and takes the form of a judgment made by the reader (Osborne, 1990; Patton, 2002), it is still worthwhile to emphasize that it is unclear the extent to which the findings of this study may generalize to other populations, university settings, counselor education programs, or triadic supervision formats.

Implications Several aspects of the findings of this study have implications for the practice of triadic supervision. First, and perhaps foremost, is the care that must be taken in pairing super-visees. Supervisors should work to identify a good working relationship between potential supervision partners. The level of trust and safety necessary for a supervisee to be willing to be vulnerable in supervision is directly affected by the quality of the supervision relationship, which now includes the peer. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the process of pair-ing should not be an end in itself; rather, the importance of the

relationship should be explicit in the supervision process and should receive the level of attention that it is due.

Second, it is important for supervisors to be aware that supervisees viewed the split focus of triadic supervision as a mixed blessing. Although they appreciated not being in the “hot seat” continuously, there was anxiety about the amount and intensity of focus on their own work. Supervisors may need to build in extra time to check in with the counselor who is not presenting and try to draw connections between the supervisees’ learning processes.

Supervisors should also be aware that providing feed-back in the triadic structure can be challenging for everyone involved. Moreover, supervisees may need to be trained in giving effective feedback, and providing critical feedback should be an element of such feedback. Feedback, including critical feedback, should be framed as an expectation in the process and be a part of the supervision culture. Finally, it is important for supervisors to recognize that even positive feedback can have an impact on both supervisees. Supervisors should be explicit and direct in giving feedback and should model effective feedback practices.

Finally, triadic supervision allows for new forms of learning and support that the supervisor should be aware of to maximize their impact. Participants emphasized the power of observing their partner in terms of learning and validation of clinical chal-lenges. It is important for supervisors to invite input and alterna-tive perspectives from supervisees to generate the greatest breadth of experience during the supervision process. Supervisors may also choose to create opportunities for supervisees to support one another, much as they would in peer supervision, to build confidence and stimulate interdependence that can extend into other parts of the training program and into professional work.

The findings also have implications for further research. First, it would be valuable to explore the experiences of triadic supervisees at universities that differ in size, program structure, and triadic supervision format from the university included in this study. This would include focusing on programs in which triadic supervision meetings differ in length, frequency, orga-nization, or supervisor status (i.e., faculty member) from the structure that we have described in this article. Second, further research should examine the experiences of supervisees from other ethnic and racial groups. Third, additional insights into tri-adic supervision may be gained by using participant observation (e.g., Jorgensen, 1989; Patton, 2002), both during and outside of supervision meetings, or including videotaped supervision meetings as part of the data collection process.

Triadic supervision appears to hold promise for teaching counseling skills, stimulating counselor development, and supporting supervisees, but many aspects of this new super-vision format still need to be understood more thoroughly. This study represents an initial effort to understand the pro-cesses and issues involved in the use of triadic supervision, but further research is needed. This study was focused on supervisees in a counselor education program who received



triadic supervision as their primary mode of supervision. By examining their experiences with this form of supervision, we have been able to identify some of its strengths and limitations. These insights suggest that triadic supervision shows a good deal of promise but that a number of potential difficulties also need to be recognized and addressed.

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A Qualitative Investigation of Supervisees' Experiences of Triadic Supervision