Relationship Between the Supervisory Working Alliance and Outcomes: A Meta‐Analysis

Abstract

This study investigated the relationships between the supervisory working alliance and supervision outcome variables using meta‐analysis. The authors reviewed 27 articles, dissertations, and theses published between 1990 and 2018. The authors used the MIX program to calculate the meta‐analyses. The results indicate that the supervisory working alliance is positively related to supervision outcome variables. Supervisees’ perceived relationship with the supervisor was positively related to the relationship with the client. This shows that the phenomenon of isomorphism is a repeated pattern in the relationships in supervision and counseling. The authors discuss the limitations and implications.

Does peer relationship matter? A multilevel investigation of the effects of peer and supervisory relationships on group supervision outcomes.

“…Future studies may include other measures of SAT to verify the findings, although it might still be difficult to truly isolate one's experience with supervision from one's experience with the supervisor. In addition, SWA has been consistently found to be a significant correlate of SAT in this and other studies (e.g., Park et al, 2019), highlighting that supervisors may indeed play a more salient role than peers in affecting trainees' SAT. The different contributions may be related to the different roles peers and supervisor play.…”

“…Although these studies generally reveal the beneficial effects of good supervisory relationships, the specific associations are not uniform across different outcome variables. For example, in a meta-analysis of supervision studies (Park et al, 2019), SWA was strongly correlated with SAT, but only moderately so with supervisees’ CSE. This suggests that the supervisory relationship predicts different training outcome variables to varying degrees, and factors other than the supervisory relationship may be associated with training outcomes, especially CSE.…”

What do clinical supervision research reviews tell us? Surveying the last 25 years

“…relationship variables, developmental considerations; Bernard & Goodyear, ), what Ladany and Malouf () refer to as ‘inside supervision’ matters. Data support the supervisor–supervisee relationship, perhaps the most substantial ‘inside’ matter, as being integral to fostering supervisee change (Carifio & Hess, ; Ellis, ; Park, Ha, Lee, Lee, & Lee, ). Data further suggest that supervision positively impacts supervisees, resulting in such gains as enhanced self‐awareness, enhanced self‐efficacy and enhanced skill acquisition (Goodyear & Guzzardo, ; Inman et al, ; Wheeler & Richards, ).…”

“…Perhaps such models provide supervisors with the bits and pieces from which they construct those unique integrationist perspectives, with some of those larger bits and pieces (e.g. supervisory alliance; Park et al, ) ideally enjoying some level of empirical support. But beyond possible piecemeal support, empirical backing for the vast majority of models (with the discrimination and developmental models excepted; Bernard & Goodyear, ; Rønnestad, Orlinsky, Schröder, Skovholt, & Willutzki, ) appears lacking.…”

Counselor Education and Supervision: 2019 Annual Review

“…Thacker and Diambra (2019) outlined the importance of attending to parallel process, especially with regard to both supervisee and 15 0 3 7 2 3 18 0 14 3 1 8 0 1 7 7 0 3 3 2 0 11 a 2 2 2 3 2 20 1 10 8 1 11 2 5 4 13 2 3 4 4 0 10 3 5 0 2 0 12 2 Other supervisor professional identity development. Attending to these aspects of the working alliance may be related to improved supervisory outcomes, specifically with regard to the supervisees' perceived relationship with the supervisor and their relationship with clients (Park et al, 2019). Numerous scholars focused on aspects of diversity in the supervision process, including humility and ruptures in the supervision process (Watkins, Hook, DeBlaere, et al, 2019), racial trust and cross-racial mentoring (Brown & Grothaus, 2019), broaching and supervisor hesitation , and the influence of a feminist orientation on the strength of the supervisory relationship and supervisee willingness to share challenging experiences (McKibben, Cook, & Fickling, 2019).…”