Interactional Supervision

by Lawrence Shulman

Lawrence Shulman is a well-known expert on research, practice, and teaching in the field of clinical social work supervision and a contributor to the last three editions of the Encyclopedia of Social Work. His newly revised 3rd edition of Interactional Supervision gives ample attention to the practical, day-to-day problems encountered by clinical supervisors and is particularly useful in fields such as child welfare, where frontline workers are less likely to have formal social work education.

The book is written in a conversational mode and is designed to be easy for students in supervision courses and for new and experienced supervisors. Along with numerous examples from 'real-life' supervision and a thorough explication of a work-phase model of supervision, the new edition includes:

• In-depth discussion and illustrations of the practice content of supervision

• Supervision of evidence-based practices

• Ethical issues, changing legislation, and risk assessment strategies

• Group leadership, group supervision, and the impact of traumatic events, i.e., 9/11

Shulman notes that most social work supervisors describe making the transition from frontline worker to supervisor as a very difficult process in which they received very little support. Many of the books on clinical supervision lack specific examples of individual and group supervision. To address this paucity of examples in the literature, Shulman, in the introductory chapter of the book, outlines some of the experiences that have been drawn from participant presentations at supervision workshops, including the following:

After six years of frontline work with a large welfare agency, a worker was promoted on the retirement of the previous supervisor. On the first Monday morning in her new role, she walked into the common room for coffee and her former peers became quiet. Two of them had also applied for the supervisory job and were upset that they didn't get it. She knew they were talking about her because she used to talk about the former supervisor with them. She wondered if this meant the end of her friendship with them.

Finally, Interactional Supervision, 3rd Edition, argues for what Shulman calls 'the parallel process,' where supervisors model in their interactions with frontline workers the manner in which the staff should ideally interact with clients, an approach that is well documented in scholarly research.

NASW Press

NASW Press, a division of National Association of Social Workers (NASW), is a leading scholarly press in the social sciences. We serve faculty, practitioners, agencies, libraries, clinicians, and researchers throughout the United States and abroad.

Known for attracting expert authors, the NASW Press delivers professional information to hundreds of thousands of readers through its scholarly journals, books, and reference works.

Some of the areas we publish in include:

-Social work in the field of aging
-Models of social work
-Social work with children and adolescents
-Ethics in social work
-Community organization
-Professional development

Genres: Social Work

420 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1992

Reviews

[Daniel Seifert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shulman’s Interactional Supervision works off of three primary assumptions. First is the number of common dynamics and core skills are central to all supervision processes (with respect to the various settings social workers are employed). Here the common elements are stressed while recognizing there are some variant elements of the supervision practice that are specific to particular settings and actors involved.

Second, many of these dynamics and skills are universal to the various modes of interaction within which supervisors operate. While there are key skills equally relevant when working with staff individually and in groups, there are, of course, important differences as well. In addition, the same skills and dynamics used in the supervisors’ responsibilities for formal group meetings and coordinating the work of staff members in the informal system can also be applied to the work of supervision as they represent concerns to the administration, deal with other supervisors on issues of conflict between units, or relate to outside agencies.

The third assumption is that there are parallels between the dynamics of supervision and any other helping relationship. Thus the skills that are important in direct practice with clients are also important to the supervisory relationship. While the relationship of supervisor and staff member or group should not become a therapeutic relationship, it is essential that the relationship remain focused on helping staff carry out their work-related tasks with their clients; viz., what is known about effective communication and relationship skills can be useful in implementing diverse aspects of supervisory function, such as coordinating, education, and evaluation. The supervisor demonstrates the helping relationship with workers thus influencing the manner in which staff members relate to clients. This parallel process is crucial in the relationship where more is “caught” by staff that “taught” by the supervisor.

[Danielle]

Read for a Supervision course I took in graduate school. The book itself is pretty good - lots of useful information in a format that I found to be helpful for integration. It presented a lot of theories and models, but also broke those down into tangible concepts with examples to help illustrate. This is definitely a book I will keep on my bookshelf in that corner office one day ;)

[Aaron Badgley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched, easy to read and easy to put into practice. Ideal for supervisors/managers.