The effects of face-to-face supervisor-client contact on therapy outcome and the perceptions of the supervisor, counselor, and client.

Abstract

This study aims to address concerns associated with ethically and legally implied practice of face-to-face supervisor-client contact. A two group, repeat measures design was employed to examine if there are differences between groups on therapy outcome measures, and client's, counselor's, and supervisors perceptions of the impact of face-to-face client-supervisor contact on therapy variables. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to test group differences and found that there are no significant differences between audiovisual supervision and face-to-face supervisor-client contact when measuring symptom reduction and global functioning. However, the client and the supervisor both perceived that face-to-face client contact by the supervisor would have a greater impact on the outcome of therapy and on the ethical practice of psychotherapy. Implications for ethical, legal and supervisory processes are discussed.