A Tap on the Shoulder: Supervision with Insoo Kim Berg

Abstract

Of the many ways one can learn about supervision, few are better in printed form than transcriptions. The SF community places great value on research methods that examine actual therapy (Bavelas 2012; McGee et al. 2005; Tomori and Bavelas 2007), including research grants and awards for microanalysis of psychotherapy sessions. Some of the best-selling SF books in the marketplace include extended transcription segments of psychotherapy to illustrate the approach (De Jong and Berg 2012; de Shazer et al. 2007). However, most of the leading texts on general psychotherapy supervision only offer vignettes and little primary data from which readers can learn (Bernard and Goodyear 2009; Stoltenberg and McNeill 2010). Perhaps the major difference between SF approaches and other supervision texts falls along the inductive/deductive continuum. SFBT historically began with observation and moved toward generalizable practices. Solution-building approaches were and continue to be developed inductively, focusing on the pragmatics of success as it unfolds in practice. With little emphasis on theory, SF practices fall on the inductive end of the continuum. This is in stark contrast to most approaches in the field of psychotherapy, as theory and practice are usually developed through hypothesis testing and logic, applying scientific methods to understand the nature and predictability of change. While inductive and deductive methods have their values and limitations, ground-up induction is often much closer to the raw data.