Clinical Supervision via E-Mail: A Review of the Literature and Suggestions for Practice

This chapter reviews the small but growing body of research on e-mail supervision, including how this practice contributes to professional socialization, and demonstrates through the discussion of vignettes how this research is relevant to everyday supervisory practice. The use of discourse analysis to investigate e-mail supervisory content and form has illuminated a number of linguistic strategies used and, furthermore, has begun to increase understanding of how these linguistic features function within e-mail supervision. The chapter outlines what currently can be said to constitute emerging best practices for e-mail supervision. It describes the discursive techniques that have emerged from the discourse analytic research on e-mail supervision. An example is provided to illustrate discursive techniques, followed by a brief discussion of how the strategy functions within email supervisory discourse. Finally, the chapter presents the case vignettes that take place with counselors in both training and practice settings, across varied supervisory contexts.