Lorraine Mangione

The Supervisory Relationship When Women Supervise Women: An Exploratory Study of Power, Reflexivity, Collaboration, and Authenticity

What does it mean to have a collaborative, authentic supervisory relationship? Can power and hierarchy in supervision be acknowledged, talked about, and incorporated as part of the learning? What does a supervisory relationship look like that incorporates intentional reflexivity about the relationship into the relationship? Discussions about the importance of the supervisory relationship, including the above topics, have emerged within different psychological communities, such as feminists, contemporary psychoanalytic thinkers, the competency framework in psychology training, and counseling psychologists. The supervisory relationship was investigated through a small-N, exploratory, qualitative study of women psychologists supervising women psychology trainees. Data were gathered for eight “outstanding women supervisors” and supervisees through sessions and interviews. These exploratory, descriptive data of real-life supervision sessions and relationships add to the conversation about relational supervision. Benefits of a reflexive, collaborative, and authentic framework to supervision are presented.

A framework for half-time internship training in psychology.

In the past 50 years, psychology has so heavily emphasized the full-time internship as the preeminent training model that it has often overlooked the benefits of half-time internships for educators, students, the profession, and the populations that psychologists serve. This article makes a case for the nearly forgotten half-time predoctoral internship. The history and context of the half-time internship, culminating in a recent national conference, is presented. The benefits to students, doctoral programs, and the community are described, as well as obstacles and solutions for their implementation. Implications for developing more half-time internships for psychology stakeholders are also discussed.

The 1996 Mount Everest Tragedy: Contemplation on Group Process and Group Dynamics

Abstract In May l996, one of the most tragic Mt. Everest climbing seasons was about to unfold, and five climbers would perish in the “Death Zone” miles above the earth’s surface. This article considers the events from a group dynamic and group process perspective in an attempt to understand what might have been happening to the group members. We summarize the events through the writings of two chroniclers. We then discuss creating the group, leadership, diversity and subgrouping, scapegoating, and multiple interpretations through an interpersonalist/psychodynamic framework.

An Italian-American view of grief: connection, transformation and resilience

Abstract Current theories regarding grief and mourning often acknowledge continued connection and reworking of the relationship to the lost person rather than relinquishing ties and bonds, and acknowledge the importance of culture in grief and mourning. Although there is little research regarding Italian-Americans and grieving, these ideas fit well with the description described by researchers as ‘Italians tend to keep their dead with them’. This paper explores Italian-American responses to the loss of a loved one. It comprises a brief summary of relevant literature around grieving, followed by an overview of themes from Italian traditions and culture that inform our thinking about Italian-Americans and grief. The authors, as participants in both the culture and the experience of grief, briefly situate themselves vis-à-vis these experiences. Three segments then illustrate our concepts of continued bonds and reworking relationships: a pilot study of Italian-Americans’ experiences of loss and grieving over time, a normative case study of one woman’s creative, ongoing response to major loss, and the importance of objects after loss from a research project of daughters who have lost their dads. Conclusions focus on the importance and complexity of mourning; the centrality of relationship; the use of symbol, ritual and meaning-making; and development of resiliency, for Italian-Americans and perhaps other groups.

Beyond Midlife and Before Retirement: A Short-Term Women’s Group

ABSTRACT As women move into the second half of life and towards retirement, they may experience many changes and transitions, including in health, relationships, career choices, and spirituality. Some of those changes can be distressing, such as serious health problems for themselves or their families, increased isolation, multiple losses of important people, feelings of uselessness and lack of a meaningful role, and growing questions or struggles around spirituality. Time is often seen as moving faster and increasingly limited. This short-term group offers an opportunity for women to reflect upon issues of identity, values, choices, desires, and hopes regarding relationships, work and other activities, spirituality, and health to create new visions. We describe an integrated theoretical framework that includes existentialism, mindfulness, adult development, object relations, attachment, and relational cultural therapy. We discuss the group’s underlying assumptions in terms of its short-term and semi-structured nature and its format, and suggest exercises, with examples highlighting important learning and/or group interaction. Finally, we address the need for more intensive psychotherapy, outliers, ensuring participation, and our own responses.

Mentoring in clinical psychology programs: Broadening and deepening.

Mentoring has received much attention in the research and training literature for several years and has been increasingly described as important in the teaching and training enterprise. Questions about the definition of mentoring, where it does and does not take place, its association with different psychology training models, and the growing diversity of graduate students who may have different mentoring needs than previous cohorts, have all been addressed in the literature and inform this study. This exploratory research adds to the understanding of mentoring by gathering data from current more culturally diverse mentees from scientist–practitioner and practitioner–scholar training programs in psychology. A survey was sent to graduate programs, and responses from 290 participants were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Mentors were highly valued by mentees, even though they defined and described mentors in a variety of ways. There was little to no difference depending on one’s training model, and several respondents discussed the needs of culturally diverse students. Mentees often mentioned 2 broad categories as critical to mentoring: pragmatic support, such as help managing graduate school and finding jobs, and emotional support. Overall, aspects of the relationship competency seemed to be the foundation for all mentoring activities for many of the participants.

Passion, Containment, and Commitment—Essential Elements of Groups Across the Lifespan in Bruce Springsteen's Work

Abstract The group, with its intensity, interaction, roles and dynamics, is an important unit of experience in everyday life, in psychotherapy groups, and in Bruce Springsteen’s music. This paper explores experiences of and ideas about real life groups throughout the lifecycle through Springsteen’s music, framed in concepts from a broad group literature including clinical psychology, social psychology, group psychotherapy, sociology, anthropology, and organizational psychology. The lifecycle includes adolescence and the role of the group to contain all its passions; the work world with its excitements and disillusionments; encounters with loss, and the holding power of the group; experiences of dissolution of the group, and possibilities for recommitment; and the passion and support of the group during celebrations. Themes of passion, containment, and commitment weave throughout the narrative.

Processes and Outcomes in Prevention-Focused Time-Limited Groups for Girls

Abstract Processes and outcomes in 8-week prevention-focused, school-based groups for preadolescent girls were assessed in a naturalistic study. Specifically, whether such groups would facilitate their social-emotional development and whether affiliative processes in the groups were related to outcome were explored. In addition to expecting the groups to be effective, it was hypothesized that affiliative processes would be directly related to outcome and, more particularly, that increased positive affiliative feelings from the group toward the individual would be more predictive of positive treatment outcome than increased positive feelings from the individual toward the group. While findings did not support these hypotheses linking process to outcome, ancillary analyses revealed that different patterns of affiliation over time (i.e., U-shape pattern versus inverted U-shape pattern) distinguished the high- versus low-outcome participants, respectively.