DEVELOPMENTAL CONTEXTUALISM, ISOMORPHISM, AND SUPERVISION: REFLECTIONS ON ROBERTS, WINEK, AND MULGREW Robert E. Lee
Roberts, Winek, and Mulgrew (1999) are timely in arguing that learning is not the same thing as maturation, and in offering an integrative, process-oriented model of training grounded in developmental concepts. In this response, it is suggested that the further step of incorporating the developmental contextual perspective be taken. Doing this would make matters less linear and more in keeping with the growing edge of developmental theory. Brownell and her associates (Brownell, Kloosterman, Kochka, & VanderWal, 1998) recently described supervision, like therapy, as a process involving the simultaneous confluence of myriad ecosystemic factors (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bubolz & Sontag, 1993), and the developmental level of all of them. Change in the participants may be cognitive, emotional, or both, and involves the restructure of individuals' personalities at one level and second order change at another (Aponte, 1994; Breunlin, Liddle, & Schwartz, 1988; Lee, 1997; Liddle, 1988; Nichols, 1988; Roberto, 1997; Wetchler & McCollum, 1998). Roberts, Winek, and Mulgrew also voice this developmental and ecosystemic perspective. They observe that both the supervisor and the trainee are changing over time, a unique product of the interaction of biological, psychological, social, and physical contextual factors. These include historical influences on the present and the facts Robert E. Lee, PhD, is clinical director of the doctoral marital and family therapy specialization, Department of Family and Child Ecology, 107 Human Ecology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1030; email
[email protected]. Contemporary Family Therapy, 21(3), September 1999 © 1999 Human Sciences Press, Inc.
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of each party's life, including the training context itself. Roberts and associates, also underscore therapy as a collaborative enterprise that is influenced both by what is happening within and between each of the parties in the session and in their current lives. Finally, Roberts and colleagues, observe that the developmental level of trainees determines their level of awareness of therapeutic issues both in therapy and supervision. Accordingly, they offer a model of supervision based on all of these considerations. According to these authors the process of supervision parallels that of therapy. In both, relationships are developed, impasses are experienced and broken, and change is orchestrated. All of this is accomplished through the trainees' awareness of what is occurring between the respective parties and, accordingly, increasing senses of differentiated self. Trainees grow increasingly knowledgeable about their selves, including self-as-therapist, and therefore think and feel differently. It is a process of maturation. Nevertheless, this ecosystemic look at the process of supervision seems somewhat too linear and too narrow in its presentation of what is occurring throughout the training system, and how it occurs. The attempt of Roberts and colleagues to integrate ecosystemic influences and developmental processes in a training model has been presaged by "developmental contextualism" (Lerner, 1991). This perspective observes that learning and development are not synonymous. Human development involves changing relations between the developing person and a changing multilevel context. Learning is a function of the person and has its locus at the individual-psychological level of organization. If learning has an influence on other levels, it does so through being part of an integrated system of multilevel relations comprising the developmental system (Lerner, 1995, p. 361). Such thinking informs the model offered by Brownell and associates (1998). They assert that all members of the training system (supervisor, trainee, and client), and the training system itself, are in a continual process of change, and this change incorporates the transaction of the array of ecosystemic factors. According to developmental contextualism, supervision, like therapy is a collaborative enterprise. It is a simultaneous transactive concurrence of supervisor, trainee and client variables. These involve intrapersonal, interpersonal, and professional developmental levels of each party, with attendant needs, fears, defenses, and adaptive
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styles. These are also a transactive product of immediate, local, and national setting, involving subcultural, cultural, and environmental factors. Mutual influence is determined by the respective parties' sensitivity to, and capacity and motivation to make use of what the others "bring." A social example is a caveat given to the author three decades ago by William C. Nichols: "The trainee's expertise may not be anywhere near as important as the client's ability to use what the trainee brings" (personal communication). Like Liddle (1988), Roberts and associates seem to indicate that a linear progression occurs in the process of supervision and therapy: relationships are developed, impasses are experienced and broken, and interventions are implemented. In fact all three occur simultaneously; mutual influence and change are an ongoing part of life. For example, when therapists and clients attempt to meet and join each other, impasses may be experienced, relative amounts of assimilation and accommodation will take place, and things are forever changed. The above includes the notion that novice supervisors, therapists, and clients differ from those who are more experienced. A training program should think in terms of stages of training (Liddle, 1988), and take levels of expertise into account. For example, Lee (1998) offers an integrative model for novice supervisors. It suggests that the training system proceed in a task-oriented way until impasses are reached. The impasses are addressed and resolved, and the system moves on. The "level" of those impasses determines what interventions are needed: social and communication skill training or "deeper" family systems theory interventions. Nichols and Lee (1998) also focus on the maturation of the therapist, and discuss contextual factors in the training system to best accomplish this end. Trainees themselves have indicated the differential desirability of various pedagogical interventions and stances according to the level of their experience (Dwyer & Lee, 1998). In fact, the goal of supervision is for the entire training system— supervisor, trainee, and client—to mature in a synergistic process (Breunlin et al., 1988). Presumably, this experience concurrently influences all others who share a world space with these individuals. Isomorphism is not the same thing as the mutual influence of ecosystemic thinking. Isomorphism hypothesizes that the behavioral dynamics which occur between therapists and clients are replicated between therapists and supervisors, and vice versa. Supervision and treatment may mirror each other, and the idea of parallel processes
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may offer interesting opportunities for interventions at one level to influence the other (White & Russell, 1997). However, these are not the same thing as an epistemologic stance that recognizes a simultaneous co-occurrence of influence throughout the training system. Isomorphism is a construction with which interested parties make sense of what is occurring. Like any training metaphor it captures (or creates) some realities of the training system while blinding the participants to others (Dwyer & Lee, 1998). Roberts and colleagues are timely in arguing that learning is not the same thing as maturation, and in offering an integrative, processoriented model of training grounded in developmental concepts. Upon reflection, this author encourages incorporation of the developmental contextual perspective. This would make matters less linear and more in keeping with the growing theoretical edge of applied developmental science.
REFERENCES Aponte, H. (1994). How personal can training get? Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 20, 3-15. Breunlin, D., Liddle, H., & Schwartz, R. (1988). Concurrent training of supervisors and therapists. In H. A. Liddle, D. C. Breunlin, & R. C. Schwartz (Eds.), Handbook of family therapy training and supervision (pp. 207-224). New York: Guilford Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brownell, J., Kloosterman, D. Kochka, P., & VanderWal, J. (1998). Training in context: An ecosystemic model. In R. E. Lee & S. Emerson (Eds.), The eclectic trainer (pp. 197-205). Galena, IL: Geist & Russell. Bubolz, M. M., & Sontag, S. M. (1993). Human ecology theory. In P. G. Boss, W. J. Doherty, R. La Rossa, W. R. Schumm, & S. K. Steinmetz (Eds.), Sourcebook of family theories and methods: A contextual approach (pp. 419-450). New York: Plenum. Dwyer, T. F., & Lee, R. E. (1998). A picture is worth a thousand words: Exploring metaphors in training. In R. E. Lee, & S. Emerson (Eds.), The eclectic trainer (pp. 88-104). Galena, IL: Geist & Russell. Lee, R. E. (1997). Seeing and hearing in therapy and supervision: A clinical example of isomorphism. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 8, 51-57. Lee, R. E. (1998). Getting started. In R. E. Lee & S. Emerson (Eds.), The eclectic trainer (pp. 33-44). Galena, IL: Geist & Russell. Lerner, R. M. (1991). Changing organism-context relations as the basic process of development: A developmental contextual perspective. Developmental Psychology, 34, 27-32. Lerner, R. M. (1995). The place of learning within the human developmental system: A developmental contextual perspective. Human Development, 38, 361-366. Liddle, H. A. (1988). Systemic supervision: Conceptual overlays and pragmatic guidelines. In H. A. Liddle, D. C. Breunlin, & R. C. Schwartz (Eds.), Handbook of family therapy training and supervision (pp. 153-171). New York: Guilford Press.
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Nichols, W. C. (1988). An integrative psychodynamic and systems approach. In H. A. Liddle, D. C. Breunlin, & R. C. Schwartz (Eds.), Handbook of family therapy training and supervision (pp. 110-127). New York: Guilford Press. Nichols, W. C., & Lee, R. E. (1998). Mirrors, cameras, and blackboards: Modalities of supervision. In R. E. Lee, and S. Emerson (Eds.), The eclectic trainer (pp. 45-61). Galena, IL: Geist & Russell. Roberto, L. G. (1997). Supervision: The transgenerational models. In T. C. Todd & C. L. Storm (Eds.), The complete systemic supervisor (pp. 156-172). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Wetchler, J. L., & McCollum, E. E. (1998). Case consultation: The cornerstone of supervision. In R. E. Lee, and S. Emerson (Eds.), The eclectic trainer (pp. 62-75). Galena, IL: Geist & Russell. White, M. B., & Russell, C. S. (1997). Examining the multifaceted notion of isomorphism in marriage and family therapy supervision: A quest for conceptual clarity. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 23, 315-333.
