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A continuing education course for 6 ces

CA BBS, FL, NAADAC, NBCC, TX SBEPC, TXBSWE

Faster than a speeding bullet
More powerful than a locomotive!
Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!
Look! Up in the sky!
It's a bird! It's a plane!
It's Super...visor!

NOT!!!

In this course, we will cover aspects of supervision, including:

Parallel Process
Cultural issues in clinical supervision
Current laws and regulations pertaining to supervision
Supervisor's responsibilities
Records to keep
Roles and functions of Clinical Supervisor
Models of clinical supervision
Mental health related professional development
Methods and techniques in clinical supervision
Supervisory relationship issues
Legal and ethical issues in clinical supervision
Evaluation of supervisee competence and the supervision process
Special sections for supervisors of psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, school counselors and play therapists
Reverberations in the 3-dimensional Interpersonal field between supervisor and supervisee as it parallels the field between supervisee and his or her patient

And, in blue, the Journal of an anonymous supervisor, including raw and unedited countertransference material.

In purple are places for YOU to think about the issues that supervision raises in your psyche. These are solely for you; we won't be asking you to share them. The hope is that this introspection will prove helpful to you as a supervisor. Some of these are marked with a cup of "cyber-coffee" (or tea, if you prefer) expressing my wish that we could sit down and discuss these issues over a cup of coffee. I hope that you will slow down when you see these areas, and really think about the issues. The danger of self-study is that people can just skim the material, in order to pass the post-test.

Featuring excerpts from DSM-S (The DSM for Supervisors) 367.00S (The Supervisor's own stuff)

Please note that many of the legal and ethical considerations are repeated in Parts I & III of the Clinical Supervision series
In this course, the term 'intern' = trainee = supervisee = social work associate = psych assistant = someone who is being supervised by any other name (or, to quote Shakespeare: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.")

(Choose one or both of the following statements as true:)

OK....here we go again. A new semester, another intern to supervise. This time I have been assigned an advanced intern, Jenny. (As you know doubt know, all names and identifying characteristics have been changed.) The crisp fall weather always made me excited; memories of crunching into apples from the tree, and the smell of new pencils brought me back to starting school. I do love to teach, and I always looked forward to the first session, as everyone who I have supervised to date has brought me new awareness and insight into the art and science of psychotherapy.

or
I sat down, dreading my new student. (DSM-S (The DSM for Supervisors) 367.46S-D (The Supervisor's own stuff: Dreading the upcoming supervision session) She was an advanced intern, and was no doubt in that awful place where she didn't know how much she didn't know! First year students tend to be so frightened and overwhelmed, that, no matter what their defenses are, they usually can acknowledge to themselves how little they know. The problem tends to be with advanced trainees and interns.  For me, after practicing for 25 years, I know how little I know. In fact, I keep discovering how little I know. (This  is great..here you are reading this, thinking it will teach you something about supervision, and here I am, in the first page, saying how little I know!) Any second year intern seems to be more certain about what they know than I am.  I was not looking forward to the new awareness and insight into my own shadow, and my countertransference that each new student brought to me. Supervision exposed me elements in my psyche that I sometimes would rather not know so intimately! Oh dear! It was September, and time to get going again. Take a deep breath..here we go!

(I think I would have to choose both!)

 

 OK, your turn...what is the public side of your supervision? What are the 'ego-syntonic' feelings that arise when you supervise a new intern?

What is the private side...the shadow..the stuff you don't really want to admit to yourself, much less anyone else? Please...acknowledge something, otherwise I will feel too exposed here!

'Jenny' followed me into the consultation room, glancing at me from under her bangs. She looked scared; perhaps concerned that I would judge her, finding her inexperienced, incompetent, and whatever else her self-doubt could throw at her. Or perhaps not..I have learned that my lightning quick intuition was very often wrong! I certainly was wrong last year, when I supervised Daniel. With her long dark hair, Jenny seemed young, tentative, and tender. She had been assigned to me by the Counseling Center, and this was our first meeting. My agenda was to begin to get to know her, to put her at ease, and to review the legal and ethical implications of being an intern.

She looks awfully young, I think. Maybe in her mid-twenties. This is her second placement; she seems so young to be working with adolescents, but it might be a good thing, in terms of establishing rapport with teenage clients. She must think that I am ancient! I remember when I first started seeing adolescent clients, in my first internship, I felt so scared!

Learning to be a therapist can be like a deep sea journey. I think the closest model is perhaps being swallowed by a whale, or even, at times, swimming with the sharks. If it feels that you might drown (or be eaten) and every part of your psyche is activated, then you will probably end up a good therapist. If you just stay on the surface, you won't ever be able to go to the depths with your clients. (Unfortunately, the same holds true for supervision. If I supervise someone and no countertransference material is elicited, then I am just going through the motions.)

 Has this been your experience? Did every bone have to be broken for you to become a good therapist? If so, does the same apply for supervision?

Poor Jenny! I  wonder if she knows what she is in for! I hope Jenny is in therapy; and, unfortunately, the Counseling Center cannot require therapy for its interns.