Supervisees’ Perspectives of Inadequate, Harmful, and Exceptional Clinical Supervision: Are We Listening?

Hutman, H., Ellis, M. V., et al (2023).

The Counseling Psychologist, 001100002311725.

https://doi.org/10.1177/00110000231172504

Abstract

Supervisees’ experiences in supervision vary remarkably. To capture such variability, Ellis and colleagues offered a framework for understanding and assessing inadequate, harmful, and exceptional supervision. Although their framework was supported, it did not offer a nuanced understanding of these supervision experiences. Using consensual qualitative research–modified, this study sought to obtain a rich description of inadequate, harmful, and exceptional supervision. Participants (N = 135) were presented with definitions and provided responses (n = 156) to open-ended questions describing their inadequate (n = 63), harmful (n = 30), and/or exceptional (n = 63) supervision experiences. Supervisees reporting harmful experiences described supervisors as neglectful and callous, whereas inadequate supervision reflected inappropriate feedback, unavailability, and unresponsiveness. Conversely, exceptional supervision involved safety, clinical paradigm shifts, and modeling specific techniques or theories. Implications for supervision research, theory, and practice are discussed.

 Significance of the Scholarship to the Public

We identified themes from trainees’ descriptions of their inadequate, harmful, and exceptional experiences in clinical supervision. The findings offer a nuanced understanding of supervisees’ lived experiences,

illustrating how clinical supervisors went awry or went above and beyond, and suggesting strategies for promoting exceptional supervision and preventing harmful and inadequate supervision.

Here is a summary

Background: Clinical supervision is a critical component of professional development for mental health professionals. However, not all supervision is created equal. Some supervision can be inadequate, harmful, or exceptional.

Research question: The authors of this article investigated supervisees' perspectives of inadequate, harmful, and exceptional clinical supervision.

Methods: The authors conducted a qualitative study with 135 supervisees. They asked supervisees to describe their experiences of inadequate, harmful, and exceptional supervision.

Results: The authors found that supervisees' experiences of inadequate, harmful, and exceptional supervision varied widely. However, there were some common themes that emerged. For example, supervisees who experienced inadequate supervision often felt unsupported, neglected, and judged. Supervisees who experienced harmful supervision often felt traumatized, humiliated, and disempowered. Supervisees who experienced exceptional supervision often felt supported, challenged, and empowered.

Conclusions: The authors concluded that supervisees' experiences of clinical supervision can have a profound impact on their professional development. They suggest that we need to listen to supervisees' experiences of supervision and to take steps to ensure that all supervisees receive high-quality supervision.

Action and inaction in moral judgments and decisions: ‎Meta-analysis of Omission-Bias omission-commission asymmetries

Jamison, J., Yay, T., & Feldman, G.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volume 89, July 2020, 103977

Abstract

Omission bias is the preference for harm caused through omissions over harm caused through commissions. In a pre-registered experiment (N = 313), we successfully replicated an experiment from Spranca, Minsk, and Baron (1991), considered a classic demonstration of the omission bias, examining generalizability to a between-subject design with extensions examining causality, intent, and regret. Participants in the harm through commission condition(s) rated harm as more immoral and attributed higher responsibility compared to participants in the harm through omission condition (d = 0.45 to 0.47 and d = 0.40 to 0.53). An omission-commission asymmetry was also found for perceptions of causality and intent, in that commissions were attributed stronger action-outcome links and higher intentionality (d = 0.21 to 0.58). The effect for regret was opposite from the classic findings on the action-effect, with higher regret for inaction over action (d = −0.26 to −0.19). Overall, higher perceived causality and intent were associated with higher attributed immorality and responsibility, and with lower perceived regret.

From the Discussion

Regret: Deviation from the action-effect 

The classic action-effect (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982) findings were that actions leading to a negative outcome are regretted more than inactions leading to the same negative outcomes. We added a regret measure to examine whether the action-effect findings would extend to situations of morality involving intended harmful behavior. Our findings were opposite to the expected action-effect omission-commission asymmetry with participants rating omissions as more regretted than commissions (d = 0.18 to 0.26).  

One explanation for this surprising finding may be an intermingling of the perception of an actors’ regret for their behavior with their regret for the outcome. In typical action-effect scenarios, actors behave in a way that is morally neutral but are faced with an outcome that deviates from expectations, such as losing money over an investment. In this study’s omission bias scenarios, the actors behaved immorally to harm others for personal or interpersonal gain, and then are faced with an outcome that deviates from expectation. We hypothesized that participants would perceive actors as being more regretful for taking action that would immorally harm another person rather than allowing that harm through inaction. Yet it is plausible that participants were focused on the regret that actors would feel for not taking more direct action towards their goal of personal or interpersonal gain.  

Another possible explanation for the regret finding is the side-taking hypothesis (DeScioli, 2016; Descoli & Kurzban, 2013). This states that group members side against a wrongdoer who has performed an action that is perceived morally wrong by also attributing lack of remorse or regret. The negative relationship observed between the positive characteristic of regret and the negative characteristics of immorality, causality, and intentionality is in support of this explanation. Future research may be able to explore the true mechanisms of regret in such scenarios. 

A pdf is here.

Why morals matter in foreign policy

Joseph Nye
aspistrategist.org.au
Originally published 10 Jan 20

Here is the conclusion:

Good moral reasoning should be three-dimensional, weighing and balancing intentions, consequences and means. A foreign policy should be judged accordingly. Moreover, a moral foreign policy must consider consequences such as maintaining an institutional order that encourages moral interests, in addition to particular newsworthy actions such as helping a dissident or a persecuted group in another country. And it’s important to include the ethical consequences of ‘nonactions’, such as President Harry S. Truman’s willingness to accept stalemate and domestic political punishment during the Korean War rather than follow General Douglas MacArthur’s recommendation to use nuclear weapons. As Sherlock Holmes famously noted, much can be learned from a dog that doesn’t bark.

It’s pointless to argue that ethics will play no role in the foreign policy debates that await this year. We should acknowledge that we always use moral reasoning to judge foreign policy, and we should learn to do it better.

The info is here.

Ethically Adrift: How Others Pull Our Moral Compass from True North, and How we Can Fix It

Moore, C., and F. Gino.
Research in Organizational Behavior 
33 (2013): 53–77.

Abstract

This chapter is about the social nature of morality. Using the metaphor of the moral compass to describe individuals' inner sense of right and wrong, we offer a framework to help us understand social reasons why our moral compass can come under others' control, leading even good people to cross ethical boundaries. Departing from prior work focusing on the role of individuals' cognitive limitations in explaining unethical behavior, we focus on the socio-psychological processes that function as triggers of moral neglect, moral justification and immoral action, and their impact on moral behavior. In addition, our framework discusses organizational factors that exacerbate the detrimental effects of each trigger. We conclude by discussing implications and recommendations for organizational scholars to take a more integrative approach to developing and evaluating theory about unethical behavior.

From the Summary

Even when individuals are aware of the ethical dimensions of the choices they are making, they may still engage in unethical behavior as long as they recruit justifications for it. In this section, we discussed the role of two social–psychological processes – social comparison and self-verification – that facilitate moral justification, which will lead to immoral behavior. We also discussed three characteristics of organizational life that amplify these social–psychological processes. Specifically, we discussed how organizational identification, group loyalty, and framing or euphemistic language can all affect the likelihood and extent to which individuals justify their actions, by judging them as ethical when in fact they are morally contentious. Finally, we discussed moral disengagement, moral hypocrisy, and moral licensing as intrapersonal consequences of these social facilitators of moral justification.

The paper can be downloaded here.