Relationship between supervisee and supervisor



Marija Krivacic

Relationship between supervisee and supervisor

During our first supervision training one of our starting tasks was discussion in small groups on how do we understand what supervision is and how to give a definition of supervision. I was a member of the group that defined supervision in this way:

Supervision is a part of a support system that allows us, through an exchange with a supervisor, to examine ongoing processes in (the mind of) a therapist that is us, as well as in a mind of a client and between a therapist and a client, processes which, for some reasons, were unseen or vaguely seen. Dealing with reasons we are not enquiring only way, but also how that affects therapeutic process and what it teaches us about ourselves, and our client. The meaning of supervision is also the protection of clients, therapists and the profession.

While thinking how to define what supervision really is we had tried to integrate all elements: supervisor, therapist, client and the relationship between them, which is stated in the Abrams’s’ definition (1977): supervision is the therapy of therapy – meta-therapy. Client is not a person we supervise, nor a supervisee is a client; client is a relationship between those two.

There are many definitions of supervision and each one emphasizes its different aspects, for example: the value of supervision alliance, educative or teaching goals, the wellbeing of clients as a primary focus of a supervision process, the focus on the professional growth of supervisees and the idea that supervision can be seen as a form of meta-therapy, etc. (Ekstein).  

Everyone agrees that supervision is a learning process in which a psychotherapist cooperates with a more experienced colleague in order to become more skilled, to improve his/her own practice, to provide a continuing professional growth. In order to obtain that it is important to create a therapeutic alliance between supervisee and supervisor, similar to the creation of a therapeutic alliance between a client and a therapist.

The role of a psychotherapist is to help a client develop self-awareness and experience him/herself in a broader (life) context, so he or she can freely use his/her own potentials. The role of a supervisor is to stimulate an integration of supervisee’s personal development, knowledge and professionalism through the process of assessment of interaction between her and a client. Finally, a client benefits from that also. In order to create such supervisor’s role, it is necessary to provide a positive effective atmosphere of trust.

We can remind ourselves that E.Erikson marked the stage of gaining basic trust as the first and the most important stage in personal development. According to Erikson this stage represents the “base for the later self-acceptance, trust in others and love and it is a base for hope”. Supportive relationship towards a client is very important and represents the base for all other events in gestalt therapeutic contact. This is also true in supervisee – supervisor relationship. In order to learn and to make progress in supervision it is necessary to build basic trust between supervisee and supervisor, to create supportive field so that a client could express him/herself without the feeling of shame, inadequacy or failure in supervisee.

There are three basic principles that gestalt relies on and they are important for supervision process also:

1. Phenomenological perspective which focuses on what is happening in the presence. The aim of exploration is gaining awareness or insight. Insight is shaping of perceptive field in a way that facts become obvious. Gestalt is being created in which all facts gain their place in relation to the whole.

2. Existentialistic perspective is also important for comprehension of gestalt and existentialistic philosophy is the base for it; it is formed on the belief that »people constantly rediscover themselves, e.g. there is no substance of human nature that can be discovered once and for all«. In therapeutic relationship with client and therapist, as well as in supervision relationship with supervisee and supervisor this means that it is about encounter of persons with individual existence, personal needs and response-ability (responsibility, and the ability to respond).

3. The third principle is the field theory perspective. This means that gestalt therapist or supervisor is dealing with integral field, organism, person, their verbal statements as well as their nonverbal body signs, postures and beliefs.

It is necessary to create a firm base for supervision process, through an optimal learning atmosphere that allows each person to reach its goals. One efficient supervision alliance must be based on I-Thou relational attitude (Buber, 1996). It is »the form of a contact based on person's authenticity«. M. Buber believes that uniqueness of a person confirms itself only through relations, contacts. In I-Thou relations the contact of persons as they truly are occurs while in I-It relations there is a distance and the strengthening of boundaries. Transactional analysis speaks about the basic life position »I am OK, you are OK« (Berne, 1966.). Many studies were conducted dealing with supervisee-supervisor relationship which resulted in defining key components of supervision relationship:

- Empathy

- Acceptance

- Flexibility

- Openness to confrontation

- Sense of humour

- Adequate self-openness

It is very important that supervisor gives a clear and direct feedback that reveals the particular area needed to be improved. A situation in which supervisee receives only approval and praise, or too much critics and negativism will weaken an efficient learning process. It seems to me that supervisees have trust in a supervisor who is ready to bring both good and bad news. Supervision relationship is unique because this is a situation in which two people consider and study the wellbeing of the third person that supervisor usually never meets in a direct contact.

Apart from different focuses that supervision can have, a discussion about principles of psychotherapy that can be applied on individual client is unique.

Supervisees often come to supervisors with great expectations. They expect immediately to learn where they are stuck with a client, why there are obstacles in a process. As almost as they expect to receive a draft for practicing therapy or a catalogue of »right and wrong« interventions...

The role of the supervisor is not to give design patterns (solutions) or prescripts for supervisee explaining what to do in therapy with a client but to open new options for appropriate choice of directions after diagnostic picture is given; to imply theoretic discussions on how those options can be applied in an actual client. It is important for a supervisor to encourage examinations of mistakes, as they are »potential takes that miss« (mistakes and miss-takes). Mistakes are often necessary for moving forward and it is apprehended that mistakes are born in unconsciousness that is waiting to grow and become essential therapeutics’ themes.

By the time supervisees realize that the purpose of supervision is to explore basic principles of good practice and thoughts on how they can be applied on an individual client, they learn to abandon the idea of true and false solutions and negative judgments that blocks curiosity and inhibits creativity. Client’s reaction differs depending on therapist's style, a stage of therapy and his/her own needs and goals.

Supervision opens the space for a supervisee to think loudly, to discuss, to take different assumptions considering a client and processes going on within him/her. That allows her to gain awareness of him/herself and also on a process within a client and a therapeutic interaction between them. A supervision process aims to empower supervisee to create the further course of therapy to realize it in practice and to follow up the results it has on a client and on him/herself also.

If a supervisor takes up the position of »the one who knows all the answers« and a supervisee is a position to simply introject them and conduct them, some sort of dependency is being created, where supervisee would perhaps never again develop autonomous thinking (»therapy of thinking«, K. Evans).

A supervisee can view a supervisor as a teacher, a parent, a preacher, especially when supervision is taking place during education. This means that a supervisee brings in a lot of anxiety, which may not be obvious – on the surface there may be a good cooperation between them, but below the surface there may be shame, hiding and not exposing true problems. All of that may be conscious, but it may as well be unconscious, a supervisee may not be aware of those things he/she does. A supervisee can project persons from the past on a supervisor and the more she/he does the effect of supervision is lesser.

Sometimes it may be very frustrating for a supervisor when transference governs the process and it is very important to deal with that issue and to challenge unclosed fixed gestalt. The most important and truest information are our emotional reactions – feeling. Everything we ask from a therapist and a supervisor is to deal with the meanings of those feelings?! And this is how we came to the concept of presence – to be present and authentic! In supervision we need to deal with feelings more seriously than ever – what they mean in relational processes with others. Our feelings are our counter transference, and only through transference and counter transference we can see where fixed gestalt emerges in clients, which allows us to realize the client’s need that was never answered to and that was never closed. We can be dealing with »then and there«, which sometimes may be too powerful and strong that it becomes central in »here and now«. When we think about the meaning of those emotions, then we can look back in »there and then« and feel them. That is how we can come to corrective-emotional relationship.

Considering everything mentioned above it is clear that relationship created between supervisee and supervisor is most important for supervision course and it is important to create it in a way that it may encompass everything that emerges in supervision process. This allows a supervisee to get back to relationship with a client stronger, encouraged, with altered view on the further work and with a different motivation!

 

References:

K. Evans, –

V. Kljajević, Ja-Ti dijaloški odnos u geštalt terapiji, seminarski rad,2004.

 

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