Synthesis Sunday: Delving Into Falendar and Shafranske - Starting on Page 4

Clinical training is something I really enjoy. I had a meaningful experience at my own internship (many, MANY decades ago), and I find being an internship director to be very good for my own clinical awareness and development. I hope that my interns learn as much from me as I do from them. All of that to say that clinical training is one of my passions in this field of music therapy. As such. I find it to be a consistent topic that I explore during my continuing education.

Since this is something that I continue to be passionate about and always want to be better at, I tend to focus my time on learning more and more about this topic.

Now, one of the other things that I am passionate about is competency-based education and clinical training. It is a nice situation when both of my passions come together in a smooth manner.

I am currently reading Clinical supervision: A competency-based approach by Carol A. Falender and Edward P. Shafranske, published in 2009 by the American Psychological Association. I have only made it to page 5 so far - I haven't been reading much, but that changes today! (To be honest, I only got to page 9, but this book is really challenging my ways of thinking about supervision. I am currently in a bit of despair, but I am sure that I will finish this book and find myself changed as a supervisor.

Let's dive in.

Falender and Shafranske emphasize that supervision has to simultaneously protect clients and challenge supervisees to learn, grow, and develop skills in a safe environment. I have written down many different quotations from these six pages (ugh, there is still SO much to read), but I want to summarize this as much as possible because I am thinking about things that have been brought up.

Now, I am already a convert to competency-based education and clinical training, so most of this writing is going to be biased. I like the format and structure that you can establish when you know the desired outcomes of the experience. So, this may not be the most critical of evaluations - I proudly state my bias towards this type of supervision.

Now, let's get into it all. Roe, in 2002, defined two approaches to the education and training of psychologists that are relevant to music therapy education and training. The first is an input-model approach. This approach is the one that music therapy education and training were first designed around - that of defining the educational curricula. The second is an output-model approach. This is where we emphasize the roles and functions that are needed in order to be a music therapist. These two models need to work together in order to provide students with "the habitual and judicious use of communication, knowledge, technical skills, clinical reasoning, emotions, values, and reflection in daily practice for the benefit of the individual and the community being served" (Epstein & Hundert, 2002) from Falender & Shafranske (2009), p. 5. The curriculum informs the roles and functions, but the roles and functions of the professionals have to inform the curriculum just as much - and, in my opinion, more.

Without coordination of these two approaches, then having competencies is a useless practice. There you go - my opinion. The input-model approach has to be linked to the same output-model skills and demonstrable elements to better prepare students for their professional lives. If the two approaches are not working in tandem, then we waste lots of time telling students about things that they do not need to know or we expect students to know knowledge that they never are exposed to during their coursework. We may teach them "ways of doing this job" that have zero relevance to their future jobs. We have to figure out ways to communicate across the curriculum, clinical training experiences, and internships to better equip our future professionals to be music therapists.

At the turn of the recent century, the American Psychological Association determined that many supervisors had little to no formal training in how to be supervisors. The way that many supervisors learned to be in that role was because they had been supervised. This is an interesting situation, because I know that I got a five hour training before I became a supervisor. I modeled much of how I function in this role on how my supervisor acted with me.

Another influence on how supervisors act with students is that of the technical and theoretical practices of the supervisor. So, how do we prepare our music therapy students and interns to work in a variety of clinical settings if clinical training supervisors focus on what has to be done in each clinical setting?

Lots to think about here - only six pages in as well. I have to finish up this chapter, but there is so much that keeps me thinking that it may take some time, especially since the first chapter is 34 pages long.

I will keep thinking and taking notes and synthesizing things.

Epstein, R. M., & Hundert, E. M. (2002). Defining and assessing professional competence. Journal of the American Medical Association, 287, 226-235.

Falender, C. A., & Shafranske, E. P. (2009). Clinical supervision: A competency-based approach. American Psychological Association: Washington, D.C. 

Roe, R. A. (2002). What makes a competent psychologist? European Psychologist,7(3), 192-202.