Dear Supervisee

Dear Supervisee,

Congratulations for wherever you might be in your psychology training and for the steps that it has taken to get here. A warm welcome to the profession, whatever led you to take this path, and wherever it may lead you in your professional and personal journeys.

A lot of times we can come to supervision not exactly sure what we’re looking for, except that we have to book a session fortnightly to tick the box and to meet AHPRA’s registration requirements.

Supervision can be various things. It can a mandated process as part of registration, but at the heart of it, clinical supervision is central to not only clinical training but also forming our identity as a psychologist. It can help us develop and fine-tune clinical skills such as case formulation, recognise our blind spots, reflect on our countertransference patterns and how it plays out in the client-therapist relationship, as well as navigate ethical conflicts that may arise. In effect, supervision helps us build our repertoire of clinical skills and acumen, helps us deliver better service to clients, foster a sense of direction and confidence in our clinical work, and manage burnout.

Supervision, like therapy, is most effective when it’s founded on a collaborative, supportive and reflective relationship. Reflective practice can mean the daunting task of bringing to supervision sessions clinical moments that we would rather hide away; it can mean reflecting on our weaknesses in terms of clinical competencies; it can mean bringing up our countertransference reactions to clients (both positive and negative) that we might be embarrassed to admit aloud. While supervision can understandably play a ‘gatekeeper’ role with registration, it is important that supervisees feel safe enough to be vulnerable in supervision sessions to engage in reflective practice. It is only through being able to reflect on our thoughts, feelings and reactions with openness that we can build greater mindfulness and understanding of ourselves, as well as developing a deeper understanding of our clients and possible ruptures in our therapeutic relationships.

With that, in the same way that I invite clients, I invite you to bring openness to supervision as we work towards your supervision goals. We may at times touch on the ‘messy’ bits of the psychologist in you, including the bits where the imposter syndrome might sing loud, but that can all be a valuable part of the process. I’m excited for our work together and I look forward to working with you.

Joyce

P.S. I’d encourage all psychologists to find our own therapy outside of supervision. It can be surprisingly difficult to do the very thing we ask our clients to do every session - a difficult but fruitful process!