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Page, Steve
Patterson, James
Steve Page
Supervising the Counsellor (with Val Wosket)
Supervising the Counsellor: A Cyclical Model
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Description: First published in 1994, Supervising the Counsellor is a
description of the Cyclical Model of counselling supervision; the authors are
Steve Page, Head of the Counselling Service at the University of Hull, and Val
Wosket, a senior lecturer and Head of the Scheme for Counselling Studies at the
College of Ripon and York St John.
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First, let it be said that although I'm on a counselling training course at the
moment (about to start Year Two of my Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling, here
in London) I haven't actually done any counselling yet, let alone had any
supervision. So I'm maybe not at the stage where I could best appreciate or
review this book. Well, be that as it may, I thought it was a good solid read, a
fine introduction to the subject of supervision, informative and clearly written.
From all I've learned so far, including all that I've read in this book,
supervision (generally speaking) would appear to be an eminently sensible and
worthwhile thing to have, at any stage of one's career as a counsellor. Not only
would it be a great help to inexperienced counsellors, especially when faced
with ethical or professional dilemmas, but it would also provide an additional
layer of protection for the client, against inappropriate, dangerous or illegal
practices. The authors discuss the question of what supervisors actually do,
i.e. whether they are mentoring, managing, policing or even counselling the
counsellors - of all these, I think mentoring comes closest, although it's not an
exact fit.
Supervision is also open to abuse, as it is possible that supervisors might in
some situations be able to bully, hyper-criticise or wrongly impose their values
on supervisees. Page and Wosket point out some of the pitfalls; two extreme
positions they describe are the "ethical inquisitor", picking up every little
error or perceived moral failing on the part of the supervisee, and the "passive
optimist", for whom everything will turn out all right if ignored or left alone.
The role of the supervisor can also vary, according to the authors, depending on
whether they are dealing with an inexperienced or a seasoned counsellor.
An inexperienced counsellor might need more guidance and reassurance, a seasoned
counsellor might appreciate a fresh point of view and some help to ward off
boredom or burnout. (Interestingly enough, critics of Page and Wosket have
pointed out that the opposite could be also valid, there could just as well
be bored novices and insecure veterans. True?)
The authors' explanation of the Cyclical Model, with its recurring stages of
contract, focus, space, bridge and review, is nice and clear, making a lot of
sense to me. They mention other models at the beginning of the book - the
Developmental Model of Stoltenberg and Delworth, and the Process Model of
Hawkins and Shohet - but I'm not yet in a position to evaluate or compare
these, really. For me, it's a bit like discussing and comparing different
kinds of motorbike engine, or any other subject about which I am still
woefully ignorant.
One question that occurred to me was: who supervises the supervisor? I started
to imagine a vast pyramid-like edifice of supervision, with lowly counsellors
forming the base, and ever more senior or powerful supervisors above them,
culminating in a Supreme Supervisor at the very top. Well... no. A much more
realistic and sensible picture is that of a loose network of peers,
supervising one another. Maybe I've just read too many spy stories.
Anyway, I think this has been helpful, but it's definitely one book that
I'll have to come back to in a few years' time, as by then I should have some
actual counselling experience, hopefully, and will know what I'm talking
about. We will see.
© Alex Cull, 26th August 2005
In the short space of time that I actually did some counselling, yes I had
supervision, and yes it was pretty much how it was described in the book.
It's really not that complicated.
Alex Cull, 12th May 2008
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James Patterson
James Patterson's homepage: http://www.jamespatterson.com
The Jester (with Andrew Gross)
The Jester
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Humble innkeeper Hugh de Luc returns from the Crusades to find his wife has
been taken captive by a local nobleman. Disguised as a jester Hugh sets out to
infiltrate the enemy's castle.
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Planet Bookworm review: To date I haven't read a lot of historical fiction,
but thought I'd give this one a go, as the premise looked intriguing. A story of
love, war and intrigue in the time of the Crusades - it all sounded like
powerful, spellbinding stuff.
Alas, The Jester failed to live up to the hype.
The one very good thing about this book is the pace, which rarely slackens, and
this is helped by the fact that the chapters are bite-sized. In this sense the
book is similar to a breakfast cereal which comes in manageable chunks - it may
taste like cardboard but at least it's easy to shovel into your mouth.
One curious feature of The Jester is that it starts with one story (as
described by the blurb) but half way through the book this effectively ends,
and what was once a sub-plot then becomes the main one. This makes the blurb
somewhat misleading - I won't go into detail, as some of you may still want to
read this book, suffice it to say that if you are expecting the advertised
innkeeper-as-jester love-triumphing-over-adversity story to get very far, you
are in for a surprise.
Two things badly let The Jester down, in my opinion. Firstly, the
characters. Continuing my breakfast cereal metaphor, these are so two-
dimensional they could have indeed been cut out from the back of a cornflake
packet. Villagers are honest, worthy, earthy, upstanding, downtrodden and brave.
Nobles are vile, deceitful, cruel, cowardly and lecherous. Think Braveheart.
Some reviewers have picked up on minor historical inaccuracies. Others complain
about the profanity and depictions of infanticide. I'm not really concerned
much about the last two, as profanity and infanticide could well have been
rife in the eleventh century, for all I know. What bothered me most was the
thoughtless butchery of the English language in these pages.
Here's one example, plucked almost at random: "The man staggered, his eyes
horrifically wide." Now I don't know about you, but to me this sentence
implies that this hapless person's eyeballs were bursting grotesquely out of
their sockets, which I'm sure wasn't the intention. This is the second thing
that thoroughly marred The Jester for me - sloppy, uncaring use of
language.
I'm used to books written in that flavour of bland bestseller-ese that I'm
sure we're all familiar with. However, this book goes beyond mere bland.
To pursue my breakfast cereal metaphor to the bitter end, reading The Jester
was like taking mouthfuls of oatmeal that happened to also contain wood chips
and rusty screws. Not pleasant at all.
© Alex Cull, 24th July 2003
Oh dear, I really was fed up when I read this book, can you tell? Looking
back now, it wasn't very much better or worse than others which have a
similar level of literary wooden-headedness (The Da Vinci Code springs
to mind here) but which didn't manage to annoy me quite as much. Probably I
was expecting it to be far better than it actually was. I've read some more
James Patterson novels in the years since, and enjoyed them, so I think it's
all about expectations, basically.
Alex Cull, 12th May 2008
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