Supervisor Malpractice: Liability to the Supervisee in Clinical Supervision

Inadequate and Harmful Clinical Supervision

Two studies were conducted to revise and empirically test Ellis’s framework for inadequate and harmful supervision, and to determine the occurrence of inadequate and harmful clinical supervision from the supervisees’ perspective. For Study 1, we delineated 10 criteria for minimally adequate clinical supervision and defined inadequate and harmful supervision by differentiating self-identified and de facto supervision for each. Ratings from 34 supervision experts were used to generate a taxonomy of 16 de facto inadequate and 21 de facto harmful supervision descriptors. Because harmful supervision was distinct from, yet subsumed by, inadequate supervision, we revised the taxonomy and definitions accordingly. In Study 2, the occurrence of inadequate and harmful supervision was assessed for 363 supervisees; 93.0% were currently receiving inadequate supervision and 35.3% were currently receiving harmful supervision. Over half of the supervisees had received harmful clinical supervision at some point. Implications for research, training, and practice are discussed.

What Helps and What Hinders in Cross-Cultural Clinical Supervision

This study investigated what helped and what hindered in cross-cultural supervision. The participants were 25 visible minority graduate students and early counseling professionals. They were individually interviewed according to an expanded version of Flanagan’s critical incident technique. The most frequently cited positive themes were subsumed in five key areas: (a) personal attributes of the supervisor, (b) supervision competencies, (c) mentoring, (d) relationship, and (e) multicultural supervision competencies. The most frequently reported negative themes were grouped into five areas: (a) personal difficulties as a visible minority, (b) negative personal attributes of the supervisor, (c) lack of a safe and trusting relationship, (d) lack of multicultural supervision competencies, and (e) lack of supervision competencies. The results support a person-centered mentoring model of effective supervision.

Supervision of Psychotherapy

Current models and issues related to psychotherapy supervision are examined. These include ethical and legal issues, problems of interpersonal competence, and multicultural issues. As a part of this analysis, interviews about supervision with five prominent counseling psychologists are included to provide their perspectives. Implications for the field of counseling psychology are described, and a series of recommendations is presented.