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Chapter 1 Overview: the Research and the Researcher Chapter 1 The Research and the Researcher 1 Chapter 1 Overview: The Research and the Researcher Introduction This thesis describes an expansion of horizons, guided by Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer, 1993, 2006, 2007a, 2008), in studying the clinical supervision practice of Virginia Satir (1916-1988), a pioneer of family therapy, through exploring how she supervised family therapy practitioners and workshop leaders. Hermeneutics is usually referred to as the art of understanding; first practised in judicial and theological disciplines and gradually developed into a methodology of interpreting and understanding in the academia (Thiselton, 2009). Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, however, is “not a prescription for the practice of understanding, but a description of the way interpretative understanding is achieved” (Gadamer, 1993, p. 266). This study gathers her students’ experiences through interviews and email exchanges, and goes through cycles of cross-examining these experiences with Satir’s writings and demonstrations to come to a broader and deeper understanding of her supervision practice. This study also explores how supervisors of the helping professions could be informed and/or inspired to practise clinical supervision more effectively. Below, in this chapter, I provide an overview of this research and my researcher’s position in this investigation. Virginia Satir has been referred to as “the most visible and influential populariser of family and marital therapy among both professional and lay audience” (Gurman & Fraenkel, 2002, p. 214); and “a remarkable human being, who made a difference in the world not only for her ability to do but also her ability to be” (Santos, 2003, p. 14). She has been constantly Chapter 1 The Research and the Researcher 2 referred to as the Mother of Family Therapy by many authors (such as Hecker & Wetchler, 2003; Kramer, 1995b; Santos, 2003). She published the ground-breaking book Conjoint Family Therapy in 1964, and “reached millions of people throughout the world through her writings, videotapes, workshops, and personal appearances” (Innes, 2002, p. 35). Despite these accolades, she was not given due recognition at the height of her career. Satir was marginalized in the academic field (Gurman, 2008; Pittman, 1989), and criticized as a “naïve and fuzzy thinker” (Nichols & Schwartz, 1991, p. 116) in the 70s. In the face of criticism, she remained true to her “highly idiosyncratic” (Minuchin, Lee, & Simon, 2006, p. 8) way of using herself in therapy, and “challenged practitioners to move from being technicians (developing skills) and clinicians (using those skills, coupled with practice wisdom) to becoming magicians (using skills, practice wisdom, and self)” (Dewane, 2006, p. 544). In fact, since Satir’s death, i.e., within the past twenty plus years, the field has been getting more acquainted with her work, and has started to acknowledge her as being ahead of her time (Carlson & Kjos, 2002; Hoffman, 1998; McLendon, 2000a; Nichols & Schwartz, 1991; Norfleet, 2009); and to recognize that her impact went beyond the field of family therapy (Banmen, 2006; Piercy, Sprenkle, & Wetchler, 1996; Pittman, 1989). Her work is being increasingly recognized in the field; no current book on family therapy would leave Satir and her approach unmentioned. Even Salvador Minuchin, who had set up a confrontation in 1972 (as reported in McGoldrick & Hardy, 2008) or 1974 (mentioned in Pittman, 1989) titled ‘Is Virginia Satir dangerous to family therapy?’, commented that “she used herself in a way that was highly nurturing” (Minuchin, et al., 2006, p. 43) and her therapy “serves as a worthy exemplar of the work of the activist group of family therapists” (p.8). The major objective of this study is to Chapter 1 The Research and the Researcher 3 understand how Satir supervised and see whether she has left any legacy in the area of clinical supervision practice, which also “serves as a worthy exemplar”. To date, Satir’s effectiveness in therapy is still highly commended, and “her concepts are now recognized as the core principles of positive psychology, a branch of psychology that officially emerged in 1998, ten years after her death” (Norfleet, 2009, p. viii). People are still being attracted to study not only her skills and theories, but her philosophy of “people making”, and her approach that led to “becoming more fully human” (Satir, 1988, p. xi). Satir’s vision for humanity and her unshaken attitude in trusting and encouraging people to reach their full potentials has been captured in books on the practice of counselling, family therapy and personal growth. However, little has been recorded in literature on clinical supervision. This study aims at responding to this dearth, and exploring Satir’s approach in supervision, to identify the skills, and to extract the ‘theoretical concepts’ and practice wisdom behind her supervision. It is anticipated that supervisors will benefit from this study and that the findings can enhance supervision practice. Locating the Researcher Satir’s Influence on my Personal and Professional Growth In 1990, I resigned from my sixteen year teaching career in a secondary school letting go the role as the leader of the counselling team and a much higher salary in response to a spiritual calling to work in the school unit of the child and adolescent psychiatric team in one of the teaching hospitals in Hong Kong. Three months after I had settled in my new position I was stopped by a senior child psychiatrist at the corridor, “Grace, you are working magic!” She was impressed by the progress of a fourteen-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome, who was my Chapter 1 The Research and the Researcher 4 first case assignment upon reporting for duty. The psychiatrist’s remark was a huge compliment and confirmation to what I had been practising: not only working with the boy, but also with his parents, and the family as a unit. My guiding approach was Virginia Satir’s model of conjoint family therapy. Working there for four years enhanced my knowledge about universal human yearnings and family dynamics, and affirmed my beliefs that the psychiatric symptoms were signals for help, and that healing began by facilitating family members to connect or re-connect with love. My clients, my co-workers and, most significantly, Virginia Satir expanded my horizon, and I was rewarded with many “awe-full” (Mahrer, 2001) experiences and witnessed powerful changes. For years, I had been intrigued by the encouraging outcomes in my counselling practices, which were attuned to a simple and straight-forward belief inspired by Satir: There is intrinsic worth and resources in each individual, and my job is to reach these inner treasures of my clients through connecting them with love, trust and hope. It is now eighteen years since I left the psychiatric work setting, and I am practising as a teacher-counsellor-supervisor in a private agency where Satir’s approach is still the major guiding principle. The seed of conducting an in-depth study of Satir’s approach was planted in me more than twenty years ago when I experienced the effectiveness of applying Satir’s belief system in my work with troubled youngsters and their families, in both the secondary school and the psychiatric settings. The direction of exploring the area of her supervision practice was later affirmed when I became a supervisor of counsellors. Choosing to Study Satir’s Approach of Clinical Supervision Studying Virginia Satir’s practice of clinical supervision could be challenging; one has to Chapter 1 The Research and the Researcher 5 prepare to be opened to unorthodox and unconventional ways and means, as well as the transpersonal beliefs which are enigma to most people. One may even face marginalization, like what Satir experienced in the 70s; because “mainstream American psychology [which permeates into other disciplines], with its materialistic assumptions and scientistic bias, has tended to marginalize the contributions of transpersonal psychology” (Elkins, 2001, p. 205). I personally was challenged in a few occasions by views that Satir’s approach was obsolete, it was not evidence based, it was and still is not within the mainstream; hence my study would not have any significance to the contemporary psychotherapy field at large. Another criticism was that Satir’s followers have been deifying her and worshiping her like a cult-figure, and I might be doing the same. I was a little upset but not intimidated by these criticisms because I believed that they all came from good intentions and some from premature conclusions. Based upon the transpersonal experiences in my encounter with Satir’s approach, the encouraging counselling outcomes with my clients, and the increasing demand for effective supervision, I committed myself to exploring this area. The major reasons for studying Satir’s approach to supervision are, firstly, that I had deep transformational experiences after I was exposed to Satir’s teachings. Learning the Satir model has highly enhanced my own philosophy of living, which was already basically positive, and I have grown both personally and professionally. I have become more attuned to looking inside and reflecting on myself when encountering challenges in relationships and at work. Eleven years into my journey of studying some major approaches of counselling practices, such as behavioural approaches, Rational Emotive Therapy, Client-centred Therapy, Transactional Analysis and Reality Therapy and applying them in my counselling work, I encountered Satir’s approach; and I started experiencing more peace within, becoming a more loving human being, Chapter 1 The Research and the Researcher 6 and a more confident and effective counsellor. I felt much enriched holistically as a person. Secondly, Satir’s influence continues in different parts of the world, especially in Asia where I live, even though she died more than twenty years ago. Thirdly, Satir’s contribution and effectiveness in family therapy has been increasingly highly commended and widely recognized during the past twenty years; I believe that she could have contributed and been equally effective in supervision.
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