Personal Narrative: A Career As A Supervisor

This was an interesting assignment because it gave me a first hand look at supervision through the eyes of a licensed professional counselor. I interviewed Beth Cook; she runs a private practice here in Farmville, VA. She supervisee’s day support staff at various private settings. I have actually also been having an hour a week session with her in which we bounce of ideas and get educated on various mental health disorders. It was helpful to see her describe various aspects of supervision; it helped bring the concept together. The first question, which was asked, was when did you become a supervisor? She stated “ I became a licensed professional supervisor when the old rules required us to take classes or workshops, to become a supervisor.” …show more content…
This led me to asking the question describe your personality? She sated “ I would say that I am calm, open to suggestions, non-judgmental, friendly, available, and assertive.” She made it very clear that being assertive was a trait a supervisor needed to have. It was important to her because she said it gets the work done. In class we composed a list of what personality traits a good supervisor would have and all of the ones Beth mentioned where on the list. It would be beneficial for a supervisor to be calm, open to feedback from the supervisee, and be friendly. I don’t think anyone would get as much positive help from someone who was mean and never available. I liked her reasoning for why a counselor should be assertive. She said a counselor could be both friendly and assertive because someone has to make sure the session is timed and the supervisee is getting the attention and help on cases that he/she …show more content…
It would take the objectivity out of the relationship and get confusing. She also mentioned other important qualities would be to know a lot of approaches, and to be open to new ideas. An example she gave is that she is old school but loves to learn new techniques or ideas that newer counselors use. That shows us that education is always happening in our field of counseling. The other qualities that she mentioned a supervisor should have were to be structured and organized, which she referred to as the key of life. I agree because when we talked about bad supervisors we have had in our past. A common theme was a unorganized, and not structured supervisor. I can relate because one of my pervious supervisors would always lose anything I would turn in, and then blame me for not doing the task. It made our relationship frustrating because I was always being corrected, but he was just