What’s The Goal of Clinical Supervision?

• To protect clients from harm and ineffective therapy

• To provide a third ear or outside perspective on client cases

• To help therapists do their best work with clients through refinement of skills, orientation, and interventions

• To help therapists with the basics of psychotherapy (ethics, documentation, diagnosis, risk assessment, ending/termination/discharge, skills and interventions, treatment planning, etc.)

• To help therapists become more competent and confident as they become independently licensed

Definitions

• “Supervision is a disciplined, tutorial process wherein principles are transformed into practical skills, with four overlapping foci: administrative, evaluative, clinical, and supportive” (Powell & Brodsky, 2004, p. 11).

• “Supervision is an intervention provided by a senior member of a profession to a more junior member or members. … This relationship is evaluative, extends over time, and has the simultaneous purposes of enhancing the professional functioning of the more junior person(s); monitoring the quality of professional services offered to the clients that she, he, or they see; and serving as a gatekeeper of those who are to enter the particular profession” (Bernard & Goodyear, 2004, p. 8).

• Supervision is “a social influence process that occurs over time, in which the supervisor participates with supervisees to ensure quality of clinical care. Effective supervisors observe, mentor, coach, evaluate, inspire, and create an atmosphere that promotes self-motivation, learning, and professional development. They build teams, create cohesion, resolve conflict, and shape agency culture, while attending to ethical and diversity issues in all aspects of the process. Such supervision is key to both quality improvement and the successful implementation of consensus- and evidence-based practices” (CSAT, 2007, p. 3).