Graham Sloan BSc(Hons), DipN, RMN, RGN, Dip Cognitive Psychotherapy, is Clinical Nurse Specialist in Cognitive Psychotherapy, Consulting and Clinical Psychology Services,

art&sciencemanagement THE 1980s saw the evolution and developmentof nursing models in the UK. At that time,much of the nursing literature described specific models and how they had been adopted in various nursing contexts (Aggleton and Chalmers 1986, Collister 1988, Martin 1987, Walsh 1991). There was an equal abundance of articles describing the incongruity and ineffectiveness of particular models when introduced into particular nursing contexts (Kitson 1985). A similar scenario may be in danger of developing as the nursing profession grapples with clinical supervision and its related frameworks. Clinical supervision can be delivered in a variety of formats. For example, a clinical supervisor providing supervision to one supervisee is generally understood as individual clinical supervision. Individual clinical supervision is probably the most common format in nursing (Duarri and Kendrick 1999, Girouard and Marchewka 1983, Jones and Bennett 1998). However, descriptions of group and triad formats have also been published (Feather and Bissell 1979, Price and Chalker 2000, Winship and Hardy 1999, Sloan et al 2000). In group supervision, a group of between four and six supervisees is guided by a clinical supervisor. This appears to be the favoured method in the Scandinavian countries (Arvidsson et al 2001