Skip to Main Content
5
Views
1
CrossRef citations
Altmetric

Letter from the Coeditors

Action Research: Bottom-Up and Top-Down Approaches to Supervision

Pages 115-118
Published online: 28 Dec 2017
 
Translator disclaimer

Action research is a way of thinking, understanding, and promoting change by involving those directly affected in altering current practice or developing new practice. This article presents examples of action research as a “bottom-up” approach that involves and empowers supervisees. “Top-down” approaches are usually model specific and stem from the practice, theory, and philosophy of supervision espoused by a supervisor relative to the context in which the supervision takes place. Holloway's (1995, 1999) systems approach to supervision is reviewed as an example of a metatheoretical model that integrates bottom-up and top-down approaches. An exemplar of action research based on the Holloway model raises questions for consideration by transactional analysis supervisors.

Additional information

Author information

Gordon Law

Gordon Law, M.Ed., is a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst and a UKCP-registered transactional analysis psychotherapist. He has maintained a small psychotherapy practice since 1974 and is a director of the Institute for Psychotherapy, Mentoring And Counselling Training (IMPACT). He currently serves on the editorial board of the TAJ and the ethics committee of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. He has an interest in integrating transactional analysis with other therapeutic approaches, consciousness studies, and meditation. He can be reached at 5 Bawdsey Avenue, Malvern, Worcestershire, WR14 2EW United Kingdom; e-mail: .