Allen L. Hershman
PhD, PsyD NCSP
How I can help you
Biography
Supervision is not an authoritarian relationship but rather a partnership. The Supervisors purpose is to enhance existing skill sets through the process of
Socratic re-structuring. When I first learned about therapy (a long time ago!) it was driven by a psychodynamic process . The therapist was neutral and distant , didn't give direction and attempted to interpret unconscious thoughts and childhood experiences. It was all quite complicated and more importantly...it didn't work!
Cognitive Therapy (Beck) brought me to the realization that we had to back away from an authoritarian stance and establish a dialogue with the patient (or in this case the supervisee). To be effective in supervision you cannot present as a prosecutor cross examining a witness.
I learned to share perspectives in order to make sense of the learning process.
In my Doctoral studies I was exposed to the Socratic approach to teaching and learning. One question would lead to another. This was Socratic Dialogue - question after question - pointing out contradictions and implications. I learned not to teach just facts but more importantly to teach (the patient) or supervisee how to think.
"Good therapy (supervision) teaches us how to think."
By teaching the supervisee how to think and reflect we are teaching how to think about thinking! Humans are unique in that they have that ability...if taught to use it.
In thinking about thinking we learn to reflect about feeling and perhaps see another point of view....and continue to move the puzzle pieces around until they fit a more logical structure.
The Socratic Method is a tool to engage insight and use insight to construct new realities and opportunities. Allen l Hershman PhD, PsyD, NCSP
Education
US Army School of Aviation Medicine, Aero-Medical Psychology Program
US Army Academy of Health Sciences
Anxiety and Depression
NYS Municipal Police Training Counsel
Division of Criminal Justice Services, Instructor
Clinical Military Counseling Certificate (CMCC)
Certified in War Trauma
AAETS. Board Certified in Forensic Traumatology
National Center for Crisis Management
Training
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“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it and certainly without saying it...”