The Relationship Between Supervisee Stress, Coping Resources, the Working Alliance, and the Supervisory Working Alliance

The personal development of professional counselors and supervisees is an important objective of counselor education programs and the counseling profession (Myers, Mobley, & Booth, 2003). Lawson (2007) asserted that "counselors who are unwell (stressed, distressed, or impaired) will not be able to offer the highest level of counseling services to their clients, and they are likely to begin experiencing a degradation of their quality of life in other domains as well (physical, social, emotional, spiritual, etc.)" (p. 20). The belief that a professional counselor's personal development is an important factor is also represented in the various ethical codes of the profession (e.g., American Counseling Association [ACA], 2005, Code of Ethics) and the standards for counseling programs (e.g., Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs [CACREP] 2009 Standards). Despite the perspective that unwell, impaired, or stressed professional counselors and supervisees may influence the quality of their counseling services, few studies have investigated how personal characteristics of supervisees are related to their relationships with clients and supervisors. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between stress and specific types of coping resources using a conceptually and empirically sound way of viewing relationships formed with clients--the working alliance (Bordin, 1979)--and relationships formed with supervisors--the supervisory working alliance (Bordin, 1983)--from the perspective of the supervisee. * The Working Alliance and the Supervisory Working Alliance There is a tremendous body of empirical research made up of more than 1,000 research studies (Orlinsky, Ronnestad, & Willutzki, 2004) demonstrating that a strong working alliance is one of the best predictors of a successful counseling outcome for clients (Bussed & Tyler, 2003; Horvath & Bedi, 2002; D. J. Martin, Garske, & Davis, 2000). For Bordin (1979), the working alliance comprised three key components: (a) tasks, the in-counseling behaviors and techniques that make up the counseling process; (b) bonds, the personal attachment between them; and (c) goals, the agreement on the outcome and interventions used during counseling. Bordin (1979) noted that the "strength of the working alliance was a function of the closeness of fit between the demands of the particular kind of working alliance and the personal characteristics of patient and therapist" (p. 253). He argued that factors such as personal struggles and neurotic dispositions influence counselor performance and, thus, the working alliance should be investigated. Consistent with Bordin's assertion, Briggs and Munley (2008) found that a diverse sample of mental health practitioners who reported high levels of stress (i.e., personal struggles) and insufficient ability to cope had difficulty developing strong working alliances with their clients. Similar to the working alliance, the supervisory working alliance comprises three components: goals, tasks, and bonds (Bordin, 1983). The supervisory working alliance also has been extensively studied and linked to various supervisee outcomes (Efstation, Patton, & Kardash, 1990; Lehrman-Waterman & Ladany, 2001; Sterner, 2009) and various characteristics of the supervisor and supervisee (Chen& Bernstein, 2000; Cooper & Ng, 2009). Bordin (1983) outlined eight goals, two of which (i.e., self-awareness and working through personal obstacles) are focused on a supervisee's personal development and can conceptually include a supervisee's level of stress and ability to cope. Self-awareness has a direct influence on the counseling process and can assist a supervisee in understanding "his or her own feelings and what impact they may be having on the change process" (Bordin, 1983, p. 37). Bordin further articulated that the goal of supervision may focus on working through personal obstacles when a supervisee's personal conflicts hinder the change process. …