Trauma‐Informed Supervision: Clinical Supervision of Substance Use Disorder Counselors

Abstract

Substance use disorder counselors are at risk of experiencing burnout, vicarious trauma, and secondary traumatic stress. These phenomena can lead to counselor impairment. The authors describe how trauma‐informed supervision can mitigate the risks of impairment for substance use disorder counselors.

Professional Quality of Life and Affective Distress Among Prelicensed Counselors

“…Because Lawson (2007) and Lawson and Myers (2011) reported a positive relationship between caseload and compassion fatigue, our findings expand an understanding about the influence of prelicensed counselors’ workload (i.e., weekly number of client hours) and its relationship with burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Despite the counseling literature describing supervision as a buffer against low professional quality of life (e.g., Jones & Branco, 2020), we did not find a statistically significant relationship among the supervision demographic variables and latent variables of interest. It appears that for our sample of prelicensed counselors, engagement in supervision was not related to their professional quality of life or affective distress levels.…”

“…It may be helpful for future research to expand on organizational and relational variables, including prevalence of trauma work with clients, impact of personal trauma, and trauma‐informed supervision related to the variables of interest. Although supervision variables were nonsignificant, future researchers may want to use qualitative methods to investigate the supervisory process related to professional quality of life and affective distress given that scholars have noted its potential to buffer against burnout and secondary traumatic stress (Jones & Branco, 2020; Jordan, 2018). Last, we conducted a cross‐sectional study, which was exploratory in nature.…”

“…For the prelicensed counselors who are currently engaged in supervision for licensure and the soon‐to‐be graduates who are eligible to pursue licensure as professional counselors, understanding their professional quality of life and affective distress is needed. Supervision is critical to counselors’ development (Henriksen et al, 2019) and has been theorized as a buffer against issues of professional quality of life and affective distress (Jones & Branco, 2020). Thus, gaining insights into prelicensed counselors’ professional quality of life and affective distress may also provide information concerning the supervision process.…”

“…Working with clients is an emotionally exhausting process, which in many cases, leads mental health professionals to experience affective distress, such as depression, anxiety, and distress (Devilly et al, 2009). Existing findings support the supervision process as a protective factor against stress, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress (Jones & Branco, 2020; Jordan, 2018) and in promoting compassion satisfaction, self‐care, and resilience in early career counselors (Thompson et al, 2014).…”

Supervision for Advocacy: Supporting Self-Care

“…A good example of relevance of trauma informed supervision is in addiction treatment. There is a reciprocal cause-effect relationship between trauma and substance abuse: people who experience trauma often develop addiction and people who are under the influence of mind-altering substances exhibit behavior that is prone to traumatic occurrences (Jones & Branco 2020). Due to the complex nature of problems in addiction treatment, the social worker's role is very demanding (Litwa-Janowska 2017).…”