This study utilized an observational model to analyze the Seven-Eyed model of supervision within an Irish primary care youth mental health organization. Staff members worked together in transdisciplinary teams consisting of clinical, counselling, and educational psychologists, social workers, mental health nurses, and occupational therapists. Over a six-month period, 40 individual supervisor-supervisee meetings were recorded.
The Seven-Eyed model is a social role/processing model and is widely recognized within Ireland and the United Kingdom as a core model in supervisor training and practice. Internationally, it has been recognized as the most influential model in coaching supervision. As a transtheoretical and relational model, the Seven-Eyed model of supervision draws from systemic, humanistic, psychoanalytic, and cognitive behavioral psychotherapy theories as well as adult learning theory.
The ‘seven eyes’ of this model are comprised of two interlocking systems – the client work system (the client, the supervisee’s interventions, and the client-supervisee relationship) and the supervisory system (the supervisee, the supervisor, and the supervisory relationship). These two interlocking systems together with the wider context of each comprise the ‘seven eyes’ of the model. The seven eyes, or modes, are described as follows:
- Focus on the client;
- Focus on interventions;
- Focus on the client-supervisee relationship;
- Focus on the supervisee;
- Focus on the supervisory relationship;
- Focus on the supervisor; and
- Focus on the wider context
In the first mode (focusing on the client), supervisors engage in practical information gathering about clients. The focus is on developing awareness of the observed, experienced reality of the client. In the second mode, supervisors encourage supervisees to develop their own thoughts on questions brought up by the supervisees with respect to the next steps. This stage focuses on what, how, and why the interventions chosen were used. This is typically followed by direct guidance from supervisors. The third mode (focus on the client-supervisee relationship) involves asking supervisees to reflect on their experience with the client, asking questions about the power dynamic between the supervisee and client, and occasionally speaking in general terms about the importance of good therapeutic relationships for client development.
Mode four (focus on the supervisee) involves attending to the supervisees’ general well-being and professional development. The goal of this mode is to increase the supervisee’s capacity in a steady, resourced way. The work in the fifth mode (focus on the supervisory relationship) involves supervisors attending to the quality of the supervision by ensuring that the supervisees’ needs are met. The sixth mode, focusing on the supervisor, involves supervisors bringing themselves into focus by sharing stories and insights from their own experiences. The last mode, focus on the wider context, represents the broader context of one or more of the other six modes of supervision.
Once the qualitative data from the supervisor-supervisee meetings was collected it was coded using a qualitative content analysis approach. As the focus of this study was on supervisors, only the speech of the supervisors was coded. Results found that 97.8% of supervisors’ speech was coded to at least one mode of the Seven-Eyed model. This indicates that the model mapped well onto supervisory practice in a transdisciplinary community mental health clinic.
It was found that the dominant focus for supervisors was mode seven, the wider context, with this mode being present in more than half of supervisors’ speech. Following this was mode two, focus on interventions, which was found in over one third of speech. Finally, mode five, the supervisory relationship, was found in over one quarter of speech. Supervisors gave the least amount of attention to mode one, focus on the client, and mode three, the client-supervisee relationship.
Overall, this study offers empirical support for the Seven-Eyed model of supervision in that it affirms its value in conceptualizing supervisory work. It was noted that future studies may wish to incorporate an analysis of supervisee speech, as supervision is a co-created endeavor. Further, it is noted that a limitation of this study is that it was limited to a particular cultural and work context. As such, we must be cautious when attempting to generalize these results to other populations. Finally, the findings suggest that future research may wish to explore what facilitates and impedes the use of experiential learning processes in supervision, to explore experiences of working with relational dynamics in supervision, and to investigate experiences of transdisciplinary supervision (65).
McMahon, Aisling, Ciaran Jennings, & Gillian O’Brien, “A Naturalistic, Observational Study of the Seven-Eyed Model of Supervision” (2022) 41 The Clinical Supervisor 47.
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