Supervisee perceptions of the use of metacommunication in the supervisory relationship

Focusing the Clinical Supervision on the Therapist's Developmental Trauma: A Single Case Study

The term developmental trauma (DT) refers to the impact of stressful events which occur cumulatively within the child's relevant relationships and contexts, and usually early in life. According to several authors, DT depends on the caregiver's inadequate intersubjective recognition of one or more aspects of the evolving individual's identity. In the clinical and empirical literature, the study of therapists' developmental trauma, and how it might constitute a relevant variable in the clinical exchange, seem to be underrepresented. In this paper, through the analysis of the supervision process of a clinical case, we show how the therapeutic relationship may implicitly take the form of a "dance" between the patient's and therapist's DT, that prevents the therapist from intersubjectively attuning with the patient; and how a supervision process peculiarly focused on the therapist's DT can effectively promote this attunement and a good clinical outcome.

Homework in Cognitive Behavioral Supervision: Theoretical Background and Clinical Application

The homework aims to generalize the patient's knowledge and encourage practicing skills learned during therapy sessions. Encouraging and facilitating homework is an important part of supervisees in their supervision, and problems with using homework in therapy are a common supervision agenda. Supervisees are encouraged to conceptualize the patient's lack of homework and promote awareness of their own beliefs and responses to non-cooperation. The supervision focuses on homework twice - first as a part of the supervised therapy and second as a part of the supervision itself. Homework assigned in supervision usually deals with mapping problems, monitoring certain behaviors (mostly communication with the patient), or implementing new behaviors in therapy.

The Psychotherapy Supervisor as an Agent of Transformation: To Anchor and Educate, Facilitate and Emancipate

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this review was to answer the question, What do supervisors actually do in promoting transformative change in the beginning therapist supervisee? New therapist trainees, lacking treatment skills and a sense of "therapist identity," are prone to experience self-doubt, feel anxious and demoralized, and think of themselves as impostors. Psychotherapy supervision can be helpful and encouraging to beginning therapists in their process of development.

METHODS

Using Mälkki and Green's concepts of liminality, edge emotions, and boundary confusion as framework, the author examines the pivotal role of the supervisor in striving to create a transformative supervision space.

RESULTS

The author identifies and elaborates on three transformative streams of supervisory action-to anchor and ground, to educate and facilitate, and to liberate and emancipate. The constituents of each action stream are also identified.

CONCLUSIONS

Psychotherapy supervisors serve foremost as agents of transformation, their chief objective being to actuate and actualize a transformative process of therapist development. The crucial processes by which supervisors achieve that transformative objective reside in the three streams of supervisory action. Accordingly, psychotherapy supervision is best conceptualized as a transformative learning pedagogy.