 The mentoring model has heuristic value for supervision research, because the model can predict effective supervision which is directly related to mentor-like attitudes and behaviours. Therefore, any increase or decrease of mentor activities should result in a corresponding change in supervision effectiveness. In addition for the theoretical value of the mentoring model, it also has practical benefits which have received wide recognition and empirical support. Contributions The present study provides a comprehensive picture of helpful and unhelpful supervision in cross-cultural supervision. It has replicated and extended prior research (Cook & Helms, 1988; McNeill, Horn & Perez, 1995; Paul & Croteau, 2000). Probably, the most important contribution is that the study uncovers the extent and prevalence of unhelpful incidents and their harmful effects on supervisees. The sad part was that in most cases, there was no redress, no remedy, and no resolution. Only in rare cases, the supervisor or the department head apologized to the injured supervisee, and it proved to be a very positive experience. 113 The second contribution is that almost all participants, no matter how negative their experience had been, were able to report positive incidents. While many of the positive categories are related to professional competence and good relationships, several Categories emphasize the importance of the personal qualities of the supervisors; many of these attributes are the characteristics of a mentor. The findings support the mentoring model as a viable framework for effective cross-cultural supervision. The third contribution is revealing the resilience and resourcefulness of minority supervisees. In spite of their language handicaps and negative experiences in supervision, they were able to survive and grow professionally. The range of coping efforts reported by them reveals their ability to endure and persist, often against terrible odds. Many of them were able to see something positive in their ordeals, and believed that their painful experiences have made them better counsellors. Finally, the comprehensive set of recommendations provides many useful "tips" for department administrators, supervisors and supervisees to improve the supervisory experience for minority students. Since an increasing number of graduate students will be visible minorities, and the society is becoming increasingly multicultural, it is high time that we take multicultural supervision competence seriously. Limitations Most of the limitations of the study stems from the self-imposed delimitation of the research. For example, financial consideration made it necessary for me to recruit participants from Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, because I did not have the 114 resources to fly to other cities to do the interviews. Time constraint also made it necessary to limit the number of participants. However, the delimitation was also based on the research strategy of focusing on visible minorities first before studying invisible minorities, because the former is an easier target of discrimination than the latter. Part of my future research program is to conduct a similar study of supervisors who have supervised visible minority students. In view of the above constraints, the main limitation is related to generalizability. Flanagan (1954) was concerned with the external validity or generalizability of the findings. It was important to him that participants represented the relevant group. "In order to avoid faulty inferences and generalizations, the limitations imposed by the groups must be brought into clear focus. Similarly, the nature of judgments made in collecting and analyzing the data must be carefully reviewed" (p. 345). Because of the small sample size, the results of the present study are difficult to generalize. A related problem is the interaction between race and culture. For example, the majority of the participants were Chinese in terms of ethnic origin. However, three of them were born in Canada, and the rest have immigrated to Canada for different durations, with varying degrees of acculturation. Only the "new immigrants" experienced language and cultural difficulties in supervision; this finding may not be generalizable to Canadian born Chinese. The physical characteristics of Chinese people, on the other hand, would apply to all the participants of Chinese origin, regardless of their cultural backgrounds and ethnic-cultural identity. These visible ethnic characteristics occasionally invited stereotyping from the supervisors. It may be helpful to disentangle cultural and ethnic factors in future research on multicultural supervision. 115 The study may also be criticized for not including a Caucasian comparison group. It would be very informative to study both groups with the same research methodology. However, time and financial considerations did not allow this additional undertaking for the present dissertation research. Nevertheless, categories related to supervision in general, such as "Supervisor was appreciative, accepting...," and "Supervisor provided timely, clear, constructive feedback," may be equally applicable to both majority and visible minority supervisees. Categories related to visible minorities, such as "Difficulties of being a visible ethnic minority," and "Stereotyping ethnic minorities," are clearly not applicable to Caucasian supervisees. Another limitation is that the study only provided the perspective of the supervisees. In order to arrive at a fuller understanding of the challenges of cross-cultural supervision, we also need to find out what works and what does not work with visible minority supervisees from the perspectives of both majority and minority supervisors. I intend to pursue this line of research in the future. The study was retrospective rather than prospective in nature. Since memories do evolve over time, and many of the details may have faded away, some of the critical incidents may have been distorted, selectively recalled or forgotten. Future research should attempt a longitudinal study by interviewing visible minority supervisees several times over the course of the practicum or internship training. This line of research will have the added value of providing a comprehensive picture of the developmental changes in cross-cultural supervision. Finally, the present results may be criticized for lacking objective evidence. Earlier, I have demonstrated the trustworthiness of the present findings according to the 116 widely acceptable criteria of qualitative research (Creswell, 1998; Guba & Lincoln, 1994). However, researchers with a positivistic, experimental perspective may still question whether the present research can have any claim to knowledge in the absence of objective, quantifiable evidence. To answer this criticism, I would point out that qualitative researchers, using the Critical Incident methodology, are interested in exploring and understanding human experiences. They are concerned with how these incidents have affected their professional and personal developments. The participants' perceptions of what had happened to them is of greater importance than the actual events. After all, clinical supervisors and counselling educators are more concerned with the quality of the supervision experience of their supervisees than questioning the "objectivity" of their experience. It is, however, possible to provide additional evidence of the knowledge-claim of qualitative research through triangulation with quantitative measures. For example, one can conduct a follow-up quantitative study. In the experimental group, the supervisors are trained in mentoring and multicultural supervision competencies. In the control group, supervisors do not receive such training. Visible minority supervisees are then randomly assigned to either group. Then, quantitative measures are obtained from the supervisees. Superior performance in the experimental group will provide evidence of predictive validity of the present two major findings on the importance of mentoring and the need for multicultural competence training. 117 REFERENCES Aanstoos, C. M. (1983). The think aloud method in descriptive research. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 14, 243-266. Alfonso, V. (1997). Overcoming depressed moods after an HI-V+ diagnosis: A critical incident analysis. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC. Allen, G. J., Szollos, S. J., & Williams, B. E. (1986). 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