SOCW6333 Walden University Week 11 Bernard Discrimination Model Paper Due 05/07/2019 @ 6 PM EST In her discrimination model, Bernard (1997) reveals that re

SOCW6333 Walden University Week 11 Bernard Discrimination Model Paper Due 05/07/2019 @ 6 PM EST In her discrimination model, Bernard (1997) reveals that reducing supervision to its simplest components, supervisors must decide what to address with each individual trainee. Training is then focused on the trainee, highlighting the intervention skills needed to support trainee behaviors when working as a helping professional. Post a brief description of each of the three roles in Bernard’s discrimination model (teacher/educator, consultant, and counselor). Explain how and at what point you would introduce the topic of vicarious trauma to a trainee/supervisee.Explain how you would educate a supervisee through the supervisory process.Explain the strategy you would use to introduce the topic of vicarious trauma with a new supervisee in Bernard’s three roles. CHAPTER 18
The Discrimination Model
JANINE M. BERNARD
Fairfield University
The discrimination model was conceived as a teaching tool. In the mid-1970s, when I
joined the Counselor Education faculty at Purdue University, I was asked to assume pri­
mary responsibility for the supervision course. Having recently received my doctorate, I
was close enough to the experience of assuming the role of supervisor for the first time
to understand my students’ need for an aid to organize their initial supervision interven­
tions. My intent was to present them with the simplest of maps to direct their activities as
supervisors-in-training. As I attempted to reduce supervision to its simplest components,
it seemed to me that supervisors must decide what to address with the trainee and find the
most functional style to do so. These two axes became the basis for the discrimination
model (Bernard, 1979).
THE SUPERVISOR’S FOCUS IN SUPERVISION
In determining what the supervisor should address within supervision, I went in a slightly
different direction from others who had been writing in this area at the time. Rather than
viewing the internal reality of the supervisee as the central focus of supervision, I chose
to address the supervisee in the activity of conducting a counseling session as the focus.
This minor adjustment reverberated to change the experience not only for the supervisee,
but for the supervisor. By focusing on the supervisee in action, I had to assume that
supervision must relate directly to that activity. Therefore, it was necessary to further
analyze the activity of counseling in order to determine categories of counselor input. In
other words, if I could identify the component factors that described the activity of coun­
seling, I could help direct the supervisor’s attention. (Like Kagan, 1980, I believed that
much more happened in counseling than one could attend to; this was so for the super­
visor as well as for the counselor. Therefore, the supervisor needed an aid to organize all
the data being generated by a counseling session.) At the same time, I realized that the
number of factors had to be limited in order to make the map functional. The result was
the three focus areas of the model: process skills, conceptualization skills, and personal­
ization skills.
The essence of process skills was the observable activity of the trainee. (Because of the
different uses of the term process, a better description of this category might be interven­
tion skills.) Intervention skills range from the simple to the complex and include all trainee
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THE SUPERVISOR’S FOCUS IN SUPERVISION
311
behaviors that distinguish counseling as a purposeful therapeutic interpersonal activity.
From the greeting of a client to attempts to empathize, confront, or interpret behavior, as
well as pacing a session and using silence, the skill of the trainee in delivering an inter­
vention is the focus of this category.
A more subtle activity that is occurring during a counseling session is the trainee’s use
of conceptualization skills. Often, the supervisor can only hypothesize about these while
observing a session and must interview the trainee to determine the level of conceptual­
ization. This category includes the trainee’s ability to make some sense of the information
that the client is presenting, to identify themes, and to discriminate what is essential infor­
mation from what is not. In addition to the assessment aspect of conceptualization, the
trainee must choose an appropriate response to the client. The choice of such a response
(e.g., to confront a discrepancy in the client’s message) is a conceptualization skill; the
delivery of the confrontation is an intervention skill. It is at this point, where the trainee
and the supervisor appreciate the overlap of skills, that supervision becomes dynamic.
The contribution of the trainee as an individual, including his or her personality, cul­
tural background, sensitivity toward others, and sense of humor, makes up the third cate­
gory of skills. In order to avoid other psychological constructs, the awkward term per­
sonalization skills was chosen to describe this dimension of counseling. As with
conceptualization, it can be difficult for the supervisor to appreciate all the personaliza­
tion skills that are being used by the trainee during direct observation of a counseling ses­
sion. For example, a supervisor of a race different from the trainee and client may not rec­
ognize when the trainee is pulling from his or her cultural background to relate to the
client. Because personalization skills are the most unique to each trainee, they are the
most likely to be misinterpreted by the supervisor, sometimes even after they have been
discussed. The personalization skills of the trainee may be the most important to the client,
at least initially. As can be derived from their label, these skills may also be viewed as the
most personal to the trainee, making the supervisor’s scrutiny regarding personalization
skills either highly satisfying or uniquely uncomfortable.
Lanning (1986) added a fourth category of skills to the discrimination model, that of
professional behavior, referring to issues of ethical behavior, professional development,
record keeping, and the like. Although this is an important dimension of supervision, I
would contend that this category could be collapsed into the original three skill areas. For
example, if a trainee forms a dual relationship with a client, is this a deficit of knowledge
or personal integrity? In other words, is the problem one of conceptual understanding or
personalization? Being late for a counseling session may also be construed as an inter­
vention issue (a nontherapeutic behavior) or a personalization issue (a disrespect for the
client).
As the preceding examples illustrate, for every skill there is a potential skill deficit.
Therefore, supervisors are often as much aware of the lack of intervention, conceptual­
ization, or personalization skills as of their presence. Furthermore, when skills are lack­
ing, it may become more difficult to identify (through observation) the source of the defi­
ciency. For example, if the supervisor thinks a trainee didn’t do much in a session, the
supervisor must determine whether this was because the trainee didn’t know what to do
(conceptualization), didn’t know how to do what needed to be done (intervention), or
didn’t feel comfortable enough to do anything (personalization). Simply being aware that
inactivity has several potential sources, however, will make the supervisor more astute in
how he or she works with the trainee.
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THE DISCRIMINATION MODEL
THE SUPERVISOR’S ROLE IN SUPERVISION
The insight of the supervisor to assess or identify the areas of focus and/or difficulty for the
trainee is only part of the supervisory role. The supervisor must interact with the trainee in
ways that are productive to learning and improving clinical skill. The second half of the dis­
crimination model describes three general roles that the supervisor might adopt for the pur­
poses of enhancing the trainee’s development, these being teacher, counselor, and consultant.
When the supervisor assumes the teacher role, he or she takes responsibility for deter­
mining what is necessary for the trainee to learn in order to become more competent.
Thus, a comment such as “I’d like you to consider doing a role play with this client”
would be a teacher response. A teacher also evaluates the level of performance. Therefore,
a statement such as “That was an excellent session with Mike” would also fall in the
teacher category.
When the supervisor assumes the counselor role, he or she is typically addressing the inter­
personal or intrapersonal reality of the trainee. By doing so, the supervisor is asking the
trainee to reflect on the meaning of an event for him- or herself in much the same way that
counselors ask clients to do. Therefore, the supervisor as counselor is more likely to insti­
gate moments for the trainee when things “come together,” when thoughts, behavior, and per­
sonal reality merge to enhance professional development. Many of the earlier supervision
models that addressed “personal growth” relied heavily on the counselor role in supervision.
Finally, the supervisor may take on the role of consultant, allowing the trainee to share
the responsibility for his or her learning. When assuming the consultant role, the supervi­
sor becomes a resource for the trainee but encourages the trainee to trust his or her own
thoughts, insights, and feelings about the work with the client. The consultant role can be
the most difficult to implement because of the autonomy it requires of the trainee. Just as
with other types of instruction, it is far easier to tell someone how to do something than
to create a context for learning. The consultant role is more about the latter.
There are two ways to view the supervisor roles: Each supervisor statement can be
analyzed using the three role definitions, or the roles can be viewed more globally as
metaphors for the entire interaction (Bernard & Goodyear, 1992). Both approaches are of
value, but for different reasons. Starting with role as metaphor, let’s assume that Supervi­
sor B is working with Trainee A during her first practicum. It is obvious to Supervisor B
that Trainee A is floundering in her sessions, not having grasped the pertinent process
variables for helping clients state their issues. Thus, Supervisor B assumes that she will
need to use the teacher role primarily with this trainee. The following interaction depicts
the beginning of their supervision session:
SUPERVISOR B: Well, how do you think that last session went, A?
TRAINEE A: I was really quite pleased with it. I felt less nervous than I felt last week.
SUPERVISOR B: Yes, you seemed relaxed, and that was good. Were you equally pleased
with how you and the client were working together?
TRAINEE A: I’m not sure I know what you mean.
SUPERVISOR B: Um, do you think the client got much out of the session?
TRAINEE A: Yes, I do. She told me in the hallway that she felt a lot better than when she
got there.
SUPERVISOR B: Well, I’m glad that she felt better, but I had some questions about the
actual process of the session. It seemed to me that you Jacked a certain focus on the
reasons she came to counseling.
THE MODEL IN USE
313
TRAINEE A: So you don’t think it was a good session.
SUPERVISOR B: I didn’t say that …
This example illustrates the reason for considering role both as metaphor and as indi­
vidual response. Supervisor B chooses “teacher” as her metaphor, but she quickly finds
herself in a less than productive interaction because she relies too heavily on consultant
statements as part of her teaching style. Supervisor B has determined that Trainee A is
floundering, yet she asks Trainee A to evaluate her session before Supervisor B gives her
any feedback. By attempting to appear egalitarian, Supervisor B sets her trainee up to fail
in her response to the question. It would have been more fruitful for Supervisor B to struc­
ture the session with teacher responses, such as “I saw you struggle some in this last ses­
sion. I’d like to use a good part of our session today identifying those moments when you
seemed at a loss and seeing if we can come up with some ways for you to handle similar
moments in the future. Does that sound as if it would be helpful to you?” By “showing
her cards” immediately, Supervisor B would have planted herself squarely in the teacher
role; at the same time, she would have protected Trainee A from having to evaluate her
session when she clearly did not yet have the insight to do so in a way that would lead to
a positive response from her supervisor.
A supervisor’s accurate insight into the trainee’s work can be compromised, if not
undone, by an inexpert use of roles. For example, the use of the supervisor as counselor
role can make the trainee so uncomfortable as to block learning. It is for this reason that
all three roles should be considered for each focus area.
Table 18. l depicts the 3 x 3 matrix of possible choices for a supervisor working with
a trainee who will be named Paul. The supervisor has listened to an audiotape of Paul con­
ducting his second counseling session with a woman we will call Tabitha, a 20-year-old
African American woman who has sought counseling because she is in an abusive rela­
tionship. Paul is Caucasian and in his mid-twenties. In the session, Tabitha starts dis­
cussing her sometimes “embarrassment” at being black in light of the constant local inci­
dents of blacks getting in trouble, dropping out of school, and so forth. Paul, obviously at
a loss as to how to respond, makes some comment that a lot of whites break the law and
drop out of school, too. Tabitha continues to state that she feels “guilty by association.”
There is also a lot of nervous laughter on Tabitha’s part during this segment of the ses­
sion. Table 18.1 illustrates the range of responses available to the supervisor.
As the reader considers Table 18.1, some supervisor interventions will be evaluated as
more relevant and/or more helpful than are others. This, of course, is the purpose of the
discrimination model, to encourage supervisors to consider a variety of responses, and to
discriminate among them for the maximum development potential for the trainee.
THE MODEL IN USE
Choosing the Supervisor Role
There is a tendency to pair only one of the possible supervisor roles with each of the three
supervision foci. Some supervisors adopt a teacher role whenever the trainee seems to be
struggling with interventions, a consultant role when conceptualization is the issue, or a
counselor role when personalization is the issue. Although these pairings are logical, they
limit the supervisor’s repertoire and, therefore, his or her impact. As can be seen by review­
~
…..
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Table 18.1
Discrimination Model Example Using the Case of Paul and Tabitha
Supervisor Role
Focus of
Supervision
Intervention
Conceptualization
Personalization
Teacher
Counselor
Consultant
Supervisor models a different
reaction to Tabitha’s comment,
one that reflects some insight
into Tabitha’s developmental
struggle.
Supervisor reviews models
of racial identity development
with Paul and discusses the
implications of Tabitha’s
statement.
Supervisor reflects on Paul’s
apparent discomfort when he
responds to Tabitha’s initial statement
and the power of this discomfort to
block alternate interventions.
Supervisor comments on Paul’s
discomfort with Tabitha and
suggests that this may have caused
Paul to forget information he has
learned elsewhere. Supervisor
suggests that Paul discuss his
discomfort, as well as his thoughts
about Tabitha’s comment,
then and now.
Supervisor works with Paul to
understand the range of his
reactions to Tabitha, his feelings
about working in context when
black-white racial issues are a focus,
and in light of Tabitha’s presenting
problem, his feelings about being
both white and male.
Supervisor encourages a conversation
with Paul about different intervention
possibilities with Tabitha and asks
Paul to hypothesize about Tabitha’s
possible reaction to each.
Supervisor asks Paul to write down
as many explanations of Tabitha’s
response as he can produce. The
supervisor also suggests that Paul
consider Tabitha’s response in light
of her presenting problem for at
least one explanation.
Supervisor asks Paul to read
Sue and Sue ( 1990) about the
challenges of majority population
counselors in assisting minority
clients at different racial-identity
development stages for the
purpose of identifying relevant
information for Paul’s work with
Tabitha.
Using an interpersonal process recall
technique (Kagan, 1976), supervisor
helps Paul identify a variety of
reactions Paul was having during
the targeted segment in his session
with Tabitha.
THE MODEL IN USE
315
ing Table 18.1, the focus of the supervision interaction is the entry point only. For exam­
ple, consider the intervention/counselor combination given in Table 18.1. One could argue
that if the trainee is uncomfortable with a particular client, causing him to falter in his inter­
ventions, that the focus should be personalization rather than intervention. Yet, by enter­
ing the supervision interaction through a focus on intervention, the supervisor (a) pin­
points the consequence of the trainee’s discomfort with this client; (b) directs the trainee
toward the ultimate solution (i.e., when the trainee is able to use different types of inter­
ventions with this client he may feel more confident and, thus, less uncomfortable); and
(c) diminishes the possibility of the trainee becoming overly defensive. If, instead, the
supervisor focuses on personalization from the role of counselor, the supervision session
will no doubt evolve in a different manner with different results for the trainee.
This example brings us to another important point, the rarity of a supervision issue
being planted in one focus area only. Discomfort within the trainee when assuming the
responsibility of conducting therapy will limit his or her willingness to attempt new inter­
ventions. Unclear conceptualization will frustrate the trainee, thus blending personaliza­
tion and conceptualization. Inability to think on his or her feet will make it difficult to inter­
vene competently. At the same time, it is important for the supervisor to help the trainee
identify the primary focus that seems to be causing difficulty. For example, one trainee I
worked with recently was aware only of his panic in his early counseling sessions. As we
worked together, however, it became obvious to me that he was entering each counseling
session unprepared conceptually. Because each session had been so uncomfortable for
him, he had avoided doing his “homework” between sessions. Once supervision helped
him to conceptualize better (using both teacher and consultant roles), his panic subsided.
Finally, the supervisor should be sensitive to an overuse of any of the supervisor roles
or a particular area of focus. Some supervisors are “natural” teachers and prefer to give
their supervisees as much feedback as they can during supervision. Others are frustrated
therapists who can cause the reaction I once heard: “Would you please tell my supervisor
to stop counseling me!” Other supervisors seem to get stuck on one focus, seeing every­
thing as a conceptualization issue or a personalization issue. Supervisors can check their
focus easily by reviewing their notes after observing or listening to a counseling session
or their supervision notes after meeting with a trainee. If all of a supervisor’s notes fall
into the same category and this is replicated across trainees, it may say as much about the
supervisor as about any individual trainee.
The Importance of Technology
The assumptions of the discrimination model reflect educational practices as much as ther­
apeutic practices. Therefore, early on, it became clear that the model depended on direct
samples of the trainee’s work (Bernard, 1981 ). In other words, it is virtually impossible to
use self-report as the basis for this supervision model. Just as teachers benefit from watch­
ing themselves teach, and dancers learn from seeing themselves dance, counselors can con­
tinue to benefit from reviewing accurate samples of their work. For the supervisor, it is
imperative to observe directly or, at the very least, listen to audiotapes of the trainee’s work,
unless the exclusive focus of supervision is the internal reality of the trainee. What is pre­
sented in self-report is a metaphor of the session rather than the session itself. A metaphor
can be highly significant for supervision, but in the final analysis, it is still a metaphor.
The need for technology is especially acute in regard to the intervention and personal­
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