I have been thinking about supervision quite a bit lately. I have read a few articles and seen a few things pop up on Instagram (I do Instagram now, almost like someone who likes technology!) where people are unhappy with their clinical supervisor for what seems to be a variety of reasons.
I have always found it kind of odd that we have to train for at least four years to be deemed competent and qualified enough to work with clients, but the same rules do not apply to supervisors. Someone who has just qualified and has less that two hundred hours of clinical experience can advertise themselves as a supervisor and potentially clinically supervise other counsellors and therapists who have been working in the field much longer than they have! I doubt anyone who has been working for a number of years would seek supervision from a newly qualified person, but the fact it is theoretically possible is concerning. Someone with less experience may seek supervision from a newly qualified counsellor and that will only end badly as neither have the experience to form a healthy and productive supervisory relationship.
As someone that has been in receipt of some form of clinical supervision for over twenty one years I find this very sad but mildly bewildering that some many of my fellow counsellors and therapist are struggling to find a supervisor that fits their way of working and them as people. How is it that we have some many therapists and counsellors out there that are having an overtly negative experience of something that is absolutely essential to their practice, their health and their clients?
I have been relatively lucky in that I can only recall one supervisor that I had an overtly negative experience with, but I was lucky in that I was relatively secure in myself and my practice at that time, so I recognised they were not the right person for me and I left and found a new supervisor very quickly. The first time I had thought of that supervisor was when I started writing this blog, before that they hadn’t entered my consciousness for years!
From what I am reading and seeing out there in therapyland at the moment, there are a lot of counsellors and therapists having a really tough time with their supervisors.
When I started my private practice eight years ago I made a point of attending a clinical supervision training course. I had been offering supervision already for years, starting with peer supervision whilst working at my first therapeutic community, but then management and clinical supervision to support workers and clinical staff in my subsequent roles as a clinical lead or therapist in a number of different settings. Before starting my practice though I wanted to be able to say to myself that I have learned not just through doing, but by being taught different aspects, ideas and theories regarding clinical supervision. So I did this, it wasn’t easy as I hadn’t trained in a while, but I learned from the course and apply a lot of what I learned to my supervision practice now.
Whenever I meet someone who is looking to me for supervision, one of the first things I will say to them is that I see supervision as a peer relationship. I may have more experience, maybe even more training, but we are both counsellors/therapists and we are both in the supervisory relationship to share and learn from each other. This mutuality is essential for a healthy supervisory relationship to develop over time. Trust in each other is essential as at some point there will have to be some form of challenge made in it which will likely trigger transference and counter transference in one or both of us. If that trust and mutual respect is not there then nothing good will happen through the process, nothing will be learned and the purpose of supervision is lost in a mire of confusion and anger.
Jullie Hewson writing in ‘Passionate Supervision’ , a wonderful book edited by Robin Shohut puts it perfectly:
‘The supervisory relationship is one that can be educative, supportive, growthful, challenging and collegial. It is educative in that it provides a forum for research and to read more widely; supportive in that it provides a hand or an ear during the discovery process; growthful in that at its best it should increase our resources; challenging because it takes us out of our comfort zone and collegial as it is a relationship of equals, albeit one more resourced than the other.’
Julie also makes another important point later in her chapter:
‘Passionate supervision is about the humanity of the practitioner. Clients can engender difficult feelings. Staying open and not shutting down and becoming detached, cynical, or bored requires a lively and safe forum in which to address our countertransference.’
I am so lucky I have this from my supervisor. She challenges me often and I react with transference every single time (I hate being challenged, it triggers a deep set insecurity in me and my imposter syndrome is energised by a feeling I can only describe as – ‘how can a working class lad from the arse end of Birmingham who failed so much as a child and young adult in school and life, know so much, be so important to so many people, pass on knowledge as a way of supporting other people??? You are going to be found out, you will hurt people, you will get it wrong and end up on the streets drinking methylated spirit from a brown paper bag… I think you get the point! It triggers me!).
My supervisor knows me so well now after so many years of working together, that she breaks through this easily and we are normally laughing within a minute and I get clarity around what is going on in the therapy room with my client becomes apparent soon afterwards. The transference fades away, my insecurity and anxiety recedes and I am once again grounded and able to support my client and myself as they and I need to be supported.
Carl Rogers once said:
‘…A full knowledge of psychiatric and psychological information, with a brilliant intellect capable of applying this knowledge, is of itself no guarantee of therapeutic skill.’
In other words, a therapist may know all the theory, be able to quote Freud, Jung, Berne, Perls, Skinner, Bowlby or any other eminent theorists or practitioners, but if they don’t have the therapeutic toolkit and skills to apply the theory to the client (or in this case, clinical supervision), then they will not be effective in supporting others to grow, change and develop in the way they wish to.
I think there are some amazing people out there who have a vast knowledge of psychological and psychotherapeutic theory, but they don’t have the inner resources and self awareness to pass on this knowledge in a way that is useful to their supervisees. With some extra help, support and training, I have no doubt most of them would be able to learn how to do this, but as there is no requirement at the moment for them to get this extra training and support they work as they know how to and everyone loses out as a result.
In ‘Supervision in the Helping Professions’, Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet write about the idea of being a ‘good enough’ parent is able to support their children in a way that might not be perfect, but helps the child grow, develop and survive the emotional attacks they experience as they grow:
This concept provides a very useful analogy for supervision, where the ‘good enough’ counsellor, psychotherapist or other helping professional can survive the negative attacks of the client through the strength of being held within and by the supervisory relationship. We have often seen very competent workers reduced to severe doubts about themselves and their abilities to function in the work through absorbing distress, dis-ease, and disturbance for clients. The supervisors role is not just to reassure the supervisee but to allow the emotional disturbance to be felt, reflected upon and learnt from. Supervision thus provides a container that holds the helping relationship…’
The way I read this means that I need to be the ‘good enough’ peer to my supervisee, I need to put my ego and my needs aside so I can focus on how the client work is impacting them so I can reach them and help them process and move through the disturbance.
In ‘Supervision of Psychotherapy and Counselling’ Geraldine Shipton writes:
‘…the best way to help the therapist with their own work is to offer them therapeutic help with the emotional problems raised by it. Here the supervisor involve themselves with the supervisee’s countertransference problems in their work via the their reflection in the transference within the supervision itself. Supervision acts as a mirror for the work.’
My supervisor does this with me – countless times I have been angry, frustrated, sad, despairing, crying, laughing, intellectualising with her – which she then mirrors back to me so I can begin to understand what is happening between me and my client.
I try and offer the same to all of my supervisees. I don’t know any other way of being as a supervisor if I am honest and I am really concerned that there appears to be some many counsellors and therapist out there who do not have this in their supervision. This will lead to good people giving up the profession because they don’t feel safe enough or maybe even competent enough to do it and we are in the idle of a mental health crisis at the moment and we need all the good counsellor and therapists we have to get through it!
I am afraid I don’t have the answers for this, other than suggesting clinical supervision training should be mandatory for anyone wanting to practice as a clinical supervisor.
One thing I would say though is that if you feel you are not getting what you need from your supervisor, tell them! If they are good at what they do, they will accept your challenge and then work with you and own their part in why you are not happy in your supervision. Every relationship, whether personal or professional are co-created. Both people have to put energy into it to make it work and both are putting energy into it if it not working! If you are not happy in your supervision it is important that this is held between you and the supervisor so you can figure out what is happening and either make it work better, or agree to end in a positive way. That way you both learn something from the experience and will be able to take that with you when you are searching for a new supervisor.
What we do is important and difficult work, we should never accept sub substandard support from a supervisor or employer. If we do we will burn out and then nothing positive will happen for you, your clients or anyone else involved.