Glenn Boyd

DISSERTATION TITLE:

It Takes a Community: A Study of Supervision in the Our Lady of the Lake University-Houston M.S. in Psychology Program

How do students describe their experience of supervision in a training program for mental health professionals? This study focuses on students in the M.S. in Psychology program of Our Lady of the Lake University-Houston (TX). It employs a qualitative inquiry methodology, making use of two analytical tools, an adapted grounded theory and the Shotter Filter, an experimental lens adapted from the work of social psychologist, John Shotter. Data was gathered mainly via a group interview process with OLLU students. Other sources included electronic mail exchanges and responses to a brief questionnaire. Findings suggest that the students have created ways to appropriate values implicit in the vision of the collaborative learning community as a way to cope with integration anxiety, the normal developmental stress of the need to integrate academic and clinical instruction into a workable synthesis.