Developing Clinicians of Character: A Christian Integrative Approach to Clinical Supervision
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Is there more to clinical supervision than our current theories and methods can provide? Whether we intend them to be or not, our mentoring practices are personally formative for supervisees and supervisors alike. Developing Clinicians of Character grounds our thinking in the historic and contemporary wisdom of virtue ethics and grows out of a love for the practice of clinical supervision. It aims to identify and strengthen supervision's important role for character formation in the classroom, in continuing education for practitioners, and in clinical settings.
After an overview of the role of character formation in clinical supervision, Developing Clinicians of Character examines each classical Christian virtue in turn, its corresponding professional ethical aspiration, and how we can use the practices of clinical supervision and spiritual formation together to foster character formation for Christian maturity and Christlikeness.
Dr. Terri S. Watson welcomes and equips you to excel in "the helping profession within a helping profession" as you provide clinical supervision for other mental health workers in counseling, psychology, and marriage and family therapy. This book will shape your own character through spiritual disciplines in the classical virtues—and outward in expanding circles of encouragement, formation, and healing.
- Grounds the thinking in the historic and contemporary wisdom of virtue ethics
- Examines each classical Christian virtue in turn, its corresponding professional ethical aspiration
- Highlights the topic of character and ethical formation among clinical supervisors in mental health fields from a Christian perspective
- Contemporary Clinical Supervision: An Overview
- A Christian Integrative Framework for Clinical Supervision
- Faith: Belief and Trust
- Hope: A Steadfast Turning
- Love: Relational Competence
- Practical Wisdom: Competence and Ethical Decision Making
- Justice: Diversity Competence, Hospitality, and Openness to the Other
- Temperance: Reflective Practice
- Courage: Professional Endurance and Integrity
- Personal and Spiritual Formation in Counseling, Psychology, and MFT Education
Professor Terri Watson’s new book, Developing Clinicians of Character: A Christian Integrative Approach to Clinical Supervision, is a delight and just what the doctor ordered! It is well written and researched, very engaging and practical, and highlights the critically important and mostly neglected topic of character and ethical formation among clinical supervisors in mental health fields from a uniquely Christian perspective. Certainly this is a must-read for any clinical supervisor who embraces the Christian tradition, but it likely would be of interest and value to those of other faith traditions as well. This is a winner for sure and will surely help generations of supervisors and trainees alike.
—Thomas G. Plante, clinical adjunct professor in psychiatry at Stanford University, director of the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University
This fantastic new textbook on supervision is a huge, transforming step forward in supervisory practice. Going beyond core competencies in counseling, care for the client, and conscientious monitoring of counseling, Terri Watson adds character formation to the supervision mix. The result is a thoughtful, scholarly, creative, innovative, practical, and completely Christian integrative model of virtues in counseling. If you supervise or teach psychotherapy or MFT, read this book and catch the transformation of the field.
—Everett L. Worthington Jr., coauthor of Couple Therapy: A New Hope-Focused Approach
There is now a wealth of research showing that psychotherapy is generally very effective, but now we need to understand how to develop mature, virtuous therapists who relate well, care about justice and diversity, and embody transformative forms of hope and courage over the long haul. In Developing Clinicians of Character, Dr. Terri Watson offers us an integrative and holistic model of clinical supervision that charts pathways toward this goal. She has worked for many years providing training and studying the processes of trainee character formation to generate the approach described in this book. Those of us in clinical practice and clinical training know the core challenge involves developing the character necessary for the deep exposure to suffering that accumulates over a clinical career, and Watson is our wisest integrative voice on this topic for Christian training communities.
—Steven J. Sandage, Boston University