Gatekeeping in family therapy supervision: An exploratory qualitative study
Abstract
Broadly, gatekeeping is the effort to prevent impaired clinical practice and strengthen minimal standards for the profession of marriage and family therapy (MFT). This function is important in MFT supervision, but scant research describes what actually happens when supervisors encounter trainees who evoke concerns about their competence. In this study, I explore gatekeeping by interviewing a sample of AAMFT Approved Supervisors in master's programs about their experience, the prevalence, and the procedures composing their function as gatekeepers of the profession. From the population of roughly 100 full-time faculty supervisors at COAMFTE-approved master's programs in the U.S. with no co-located doctoral program, I selected a random sample of 20 supervisors to interview. 12 of these supervisors took part in an open-ended semi-structured interview by telephone, in addition to four supervisors obtained through snowball sampling. Major findings included the central place of faculty peers in effective gatekeeping, the importance of the concept of fixability over the confidence supervisors feel in the validity of their concerns, the importance of supervisory experience in the phenomenology of the gatekeeping supervisor, and similarity in gatekeeping processes between MFT and psychology. In addition, the interviews yielded a description of a previously understudied type of trainee: the suboptimally competent student who is forecast to be an ineffective therapist, yet does not actively harm clients.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Sprenkle, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy
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