The Experience of Supervision for Integrative Coach-Therapist Practitioners: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

This study aimed to explore the experience of supervision for integrative coach- therapist practitioners. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five integrative coach-therapists. An interpretative phenomenological analysis was utilised. The analysis created three distinct superordinate themes: 1) Bifurcation and arbitrary lines, 2) Detective work and 3) A conscious sense of belonging. Each of these overarching themes was supported by a number of subordinate themes that encapsulate the particularities and complexities of the integrative coach-therapist experience. One of the key findings of the study was that there appeared to be both similarities and differences for integrative coach-therapists when compared with the general literature on supervision experience. A similarity to previous research findings was the relational difficulties highlighted by the supervision literature. For example: power dynamics, supervisee anxiety and boundary issues were present in the participants’ experience. However, a key divergence, was a finding encapsulated by the superordinate theme “A conscious sense of belonging”. This finding suggests that the integrative coach-therapist practitioners have their own unique needs in supervision and these needs are integral to their professional identity. These findings suggest that integrative coach-therapists face challenges and complex relationships in their supervisory encounters. However, the practitioners also see great potential for supervision to help foster their professional identity. These insights into practitioners’ experience of supervision highlight avenues for future research. Further qualitative enquiry into particular topic areas was illuminated, such as group supervision and supervisor experience. An important implication for counselling psychology practice is that individual integrative coach-therapists may experience supervision differently, precisely because of how they integrate practice. Given counselling psychology’s interest in pluralistic practice, the discipline is thus in a unique position to engage with the development of contemporary integrative practices, such as integrative coach-therapy

The effect of missing data on robust Bayesian spectral analysis

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Published in: Machine Learning for Signal Processing (MLSP), 2013 IEEE International Workshop on Date of Conference: 22-25 Sept. 2013We investigate the effects of missing observations on the robust Bayesian model for spectral analysis introduced by Christmas [2013]. The model assumes Student-t distributed noise and uses an automatic relevance determination prior on the precisions of the amplitudes of the component sinusoids and it is not obvious what their effect will be when some of the otherwise temporally uniformly sampled data is missing

The Cricket-Tracking Project: a case study

A case study commissioned from Dr Christmas by Open Exeter documenting the process of preparing and uploading large video files to the Data Archive.This document describes a case study for the archiving of a project to the Exeter Data Archive (EDA). The project described here presents a number of challenges for the archive and for the process of recording its information. The rst challenge is that some of the information is too big to upload into a website (of the order of 20Tb). Other challenges are the number of di erent types of information and the dependencies between them. We start, in section 2, by describing some terms and de nitions that will be used in the document. In particular the words data and dataset have particular meanings in the context of a Computer Science project which may di er from those used within EDA and in other university departments. In section 3 the project is described, including what sorts of content it has generated, and section 3.3 lists the di erent le formats used. The process by which the project's content has been grouped together for entry into EDA is described in section 3.5, which also details how the EDA entries have been constructed

A Delphi Study To Construct A Script Concordance Test For Spiritual And Religious Competence In Counseling

The need to address spiritual and religious issues is well established in the counseling literature and in accreditation standards, however, many graduates counseling students do not feel prepared to address these issues. In the United States, the vast majority of clients consider themselves to be spiritual or religious, so counselors who lack competence in addressing spiritual and religious issues in counseling are likely to offer ineffective or perhaps unethical care to clients. Counselor educators must improve education and assessment in this critical specialty area of counseling. Of primary concern is a student’s ability to demonstrate spiritual competence in counseling. The 2009 ASERVIC Spiritual Competencies offer the most comprehensive standard of spiritual competence in counseling in any mental health profession, however there is no reliable and standardized assessment that measures demonstrated spiritual competency. Competency can best be measured when the examinee makes choices in a context that is similar or the same as that in which he or she will practice, therefore an effective competency measurement must include client cases. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a case based assessment for measuring clinical judgment in situations of uncertainty, called a Script Concordance Test, could be constructed by experts using the Delphi Method. This instrument was based on the 2009 ASERVIC Spiritual Competencies as the standard for demonstrated competence. iv The results of this study indicated that expert practitioners and educators could come to consensus on appropriate cases, appropriate competencies to measure in each case, items to assess competency in each case, and an instrument that included items assessing all 14 of the 2009 Spiritual Competencies. Additionally, the constructed instrument demonstrated excellent test retest reliability and adequate internal reliability. There are several implications for counselor education, First, this study provides evidence that expert practitioners and educators can come to consensus to construct a highly contextual instrument to measures clinical decision making about spiritual competence in counseling. Second, a promising new type of instrument with excellent reliability and strong content validity has been introduced to the field of counselor education. Third, with appropriate assessment, counselor education programs can begin to measure student competence, in terms of clinical judgment, on addressing spiritual and religions issues in counseling over time because this instrument is appropriate for use at different intervals throughout professional development. Fourth, the format of this instrument is also useful for educational purposes and reflective practice. Finally, the theoretical foundations of the Delphi Method and script concordance tests are compatible with one another and with instrument development. The researcher recommends that future studies to construct script concordance tests for other specialty areas of competence employ and refine this method

Phosphorus dynamics in the swale - Ouse River system

A study was made of the phosphorus ecology of the Swale - Ouse river in northern England. It ranges from a stream draining a peat moorland to a mature river influenced by urbanisation (estimated population 250 000) and intensive agriculture. The aims were to assess the concentration and variability of aqueous N and P on spatial and temporal scales, and the response of two common mosses, Fontinalis antipyretica and Rhynchostegium riparioides, to those changes. Key aspects included analysis of water chemistry, internal nutrient contents of mosses, and 'surface' phosphatase activity. The rate of activity of m situ plants was measured over an annual period, in conjunction with short-term studies of transplanted populations. Studies of phosphatase activity in the water also were carried out to assess the biological cycling of phosphorus. Aqueous total phosphorus and total dissolved nitrogen concentration increased on passing down the river. In the upper reaches, total phosphorus comprised equal contributions of dissolved organic and inorganic phosphorus, which were almost certainly derived from diffuse sources. Further downstream, total phosphorus was almost entirely comprised of inorganic phosphorus from point source inputs. The nitrogen and phosphorus content of Fontinalis antipyretica and Rhynchostegium riparioides increased on passing downstream, consistent with the water chemistry. The rate of phosphomonoesterase activity of both mosses was high in the upper reaches of the river, and was inversely related to nutrient content. Fontinalis antipyretica sampled from streams draining peat moorland was shown to have a high phosphodiesterase : phosphomonoesterase ratio. A possible explanation for this is that peat is a potentially rich source of phosphodiester substrate, although increased phosphodiesterase activity may be a response to extreme phosphorus limitation. Transplantation of F. antipyretica showed that internal nutrient content and phosphatase activity respond to changes in ambient nutrients. Aqueous phosphomonoesterase activity was studied over a 12-month period. Laboratory and field studies suggest it plays an important role in the. phosphorus dynamics of the Swale - Ouse river system