Psychotherapy Supervision in the 1990s: Some Observations and Reflections

Abstract

This paper identifies and discusses 10 broad-based themes or conclusions that could be drawn about the field of psychotherapy supervision now. These conclusions focus on various facets of clinical supervision theory, research, and practice; in so doing, they bring to light current supervision issues, problems, advances, and needs that seemingly merit our attention and consideration.

The Bonds of Development: An Attachment-Caregiving Model of Supervision

“…As an outcome of the ACMS, the trainee becomes a capable service provider, gains more self-efficacy and self-mastery, and functions autonomously from an internal professional identity (Watkins, 1995). The professional identity likely includes mental representations of supervisory safe haven and secure base behaviors, allowing more experienced trainees and professionals to rely on internalized caregiving functions, with any supervision being characterized by a more consultative quality (Rønnestad & Skovholt, 2003).…”

“…Finally, insecure or even pathological attachment styles (Watkins, 1995) may hinder the educational process sufficiently that the supervisor has to institute gatekeeping responsibilities (Bernard & Goodyear, 2009), by placing the student on a remediation plan or terminating the student from the program. In these cases, the trainee's experience (e.g., emotional vulnerability associated with lack of learning and negative supervisory evaluation) would have episodically activated the attachment system, though the supervisory safe haven function and guidance will not have led to counseling skillfulness.…”

The Relationship of Supervisory Experience, Counseling Experience, and Training in Supervision to Supervisory Identity Development

“…This model was based on the development models of Hogan (1964) and Stoltenberg (1981), later further developed into the Integrated Developmental Model (IDM) of Stoltenberg et al (1998). According to the SCM (Watkins 1990(Watkins , 1993(Watkins , 1994(Watkins , 1995a(Watkins and b, 1997bHillman et al 1998), supervisors progress through four different stages of development in their progress from novice to more competent and expert supervisors. During each stage supervisors have specific tasks to accomplish and particular responsibilities.…”

Evaluation of a youth agency's supervision practices: A mixed-method approach

“…Such negative impacts may include personality conflicts, loss of confidence, development of a defensive attitude, decrease in learning, and loss of trust in the supervision process (Falender & Shafranske, 2004;Watkins, 1995). A recent systematic review (Wheeler & Richards, 2007) indicates that, while the quality of the evidence is variable, supervision appears to consistently demonstrate some positive impact on the supervisee as well as on client outcomes, when the latter are measured.…”

“…In fact, most professionals will spend a large portion of their post-secondary training in supervision. While a majority of professionals agree that clinical supervision is essential for professional development to occur, relatively few studies have been accomplished to help understand which evidence-based theoretical models predict the development of professional competencies, how the different aspects of clinical supervision contribute to professional development, how diversity issues may affect clinical supervision processes, or how to become a competent clinical supervisor (Bernard, 2005;Goodyear & Bernard, 1998;Goodyear, Bunch, & Claiborn, 2005;Kilminster & Jolly, 2000;Watkins, 1995).…”