For developing clinical and counseling psychologists, supervision is an essential educational influence. Through supervision, new skills are shaped, professionalism is modeled, and self-reflection is encouraged. The processes enfolded in these mentor–mentee relationships are considered so foundational to the professional evolution of new practitioners that supervision is mandated by graduate programs and licensing boards across the country.
APA’s Guidelines for Clinical Supervision in Health Service Psychology (Board of Educational Affairs Task Force on Supervision Guidelines, 2015) have provided the standards for supervisors of developing clinicians. These guidelines were developed “to inform education and training regarding the implementation of competency-based supervision” (Board of Educational Affairs Task Force on Supervision Guidelines, 2015, p. II), recognizing that the practice of effective and ethical supervision requires distinct professional competencies that go above and beyond general competence in clinical practice. The authors of the guidelines identified seven domains that supervisors must attend to: supervisor competence; diversity; supervisory relationship; professionalism; assessment, evaluation, and feedback; professional competence problems; and ethical, legal, and regulatory considerations.
Although the guidelines provide critical direction around which to orient supervision practices, the document centers on individual supervision only, even though group supervision is widely used in internships, psychology graduate programs, and clinical settings. Just as one cannot assume that a practitioner with excellent psychotherapy skills will make a competent supervisor, neither can one assume that a skilled individual supervisor will make a competent group supervisor.
Supervision in a group typically requires a supervisor to provide clinical oversight and guidance to a group of trainees or practitioners, but it is much more than individual supervision conducted en masse. In the hands of a competent supervisor, group supervision offers important benefits and growth experiences different from what might occur in individual supervision; it also comes with its own set of challenges and complexities. Group supervisors must be skilled in recognizing and navigating such challenges as group dynamics, supervisor and member relationships, microaggressions within the group, and member-to-member feedback, to name just a few.
In an article published in Psychotherapy titled “Beyond the Dyad: Broadening the APA Supervision Guidelines to Include Group Supervision,” the authors look to the literature on supervision—covering both individual and group modalities—and on group psychotherapy to highlight the practices and processes that set group supervision apart. They then apply these findings to the Guidelines for Clinical Supervision in Health Service Psychology (Board of Educational Affairs Task Force on Supervision Guidelines, 2015), extending the seven domains of supervision to address the uniqueness and intricacies of group supervision. They provide examples to highlight and explicate difficult situations that can occur in this modality and offer recommendations regarding group supervisor training, group supervision practices, and the adoption of group supervision guidelines.