Factors that affect marriage and family therapy post-masters supervisees' supervision outcomes: Supervisory working alliance, supervisor characteristics, and supervisor multicultural compentency

摘要

Within clinical supervision research, supervisory working alliance is one of the most widely studied construct and to a lesser degree, supervisor characteristics have also been examined. The changing demographics of MFTs and the general public prompted researchers, in addition to multicultural competency being added to AAMFT's Core Competencies, to examine the effects multicultural competencies in therapeutic process and to investigate the role of multicultural competency in clinical supervision. Most clinical supervision research has concentrated on these variables in relation to satisfaction with the supervision process and mostly focused on supervisors' experience. When supervisees' experiences were included, research typically only examined students/trainees' experiences. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects that supervisory working alliance, supervisor characteristics and supervisor's multicultural competencies have on supervision outcomes (improvement in clinical and multicultural skills) from the perspective of post-masters, pre-licensed MFT interns. A total of 132 participants completed an online survey consisting of four measures. Participants included 16 males, 114 females and 2 transgendered persons with 58.3% identifying as White/Caucasian, 22.7% identifying as Latino, 11.4% identifying as Asian, 3.8% identifying as Black/African American, 0.8% identifying as Alaskan Native/American Indian, and 6.8% identifying as other. Three hypotheses were tested using SEM path analysis. Supervisory Working Alliance and Supervisor's Multicultural Competency were found to be strong predictors of Supervision Outcomes. Supervisor Characteristics was found to be non-significant. Study limitations included participant criteria excluding MFT interns currently supervised by other mental health professionals (e.g. Psychologists, Licensed Clinical Social Workers). Clinical implications include the need for supervisors to be multiculturally competent as the demographics of MFT interns and clientele become more diverse. Future research is recommended to include all MFT interns currently in supervision, regardless of supervisor licensure and to explore if there are differences in how supervisor multicultural competency affects clinical skills versus multicultural counseling skills.