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The Supervisee’s Internal Supervisor Representations: Their Role in

Stimulating Psychotherapist Development

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 THE SUPERVISEE’S INTERNAL SUPERVISOR REPRESENTATIONS 63

The Supervisee’s Internal Supervisor

Representations: Their role in
stimulating psychotherapist development

C. Edward Watkins, Jr.

Abstract

JJust as patients’ internal representations of the therapist can play an important role in the
treatment process, might supervisees’ internal representations of the supervisor similarly play
an important role in the supervision process? I subsequently consider that question, proposing
that: (a) supervisees’ internal supervisor representations have the potential to positively or
negatively impact learning over the course of the therapist development process; (b) that
potential impact may be most acutely felt early on, as the beginning therapist starts seeing
patients and struggles with creating a Practice Self (or therapist identity); (c) constructive
supervisor internal representations — often accessed to provide therapist support and offer
treatment guidance — may most fruitfully serve a developmentally transitional purpose;
and (d) as therapists further evolve, their supervisor internal representations may become
less prominent and, instead, be seamlessly integrated into their own therapeutic work and
practice self- development. The supervisee’s internal supervisor representations, I contend,
are pan-theoretically salient, having therapist development implications across all systems
of supervision.
Key words: supervision, psychotherapy, internal, representations, therapist development
_____________________

In being and becoming a psychotherapist, psychotherapy supervision remains foundational:

It contributes to (a) developing and enhancing conceptual and treatment skills; (b)
cultivating and crystallizing a psychotherapist’s identity; (c) developing conviction about
the very meaningfulness of psychotherapy itself; and (d) safeguarding patient care and
monitoring treatment efforts (Beinart & Clohessy, 2017; Borders, 2014). Supervision that
is fundamentally normative, formative, and restorative (Milne, 2007) may well be the single
most powerful contributor to a therapist’s competence, development and excellence in
practice (Gonsalvez & Milne, 2010; Rousmaniere, Goodyear, Miller & Wampold, 2017).
Its designation as a signature pedagogy for the mental health professions seems especially
apropos (Bernard & Goodyear, 2014; Goodyear, 2007).
But what is it that makes supervision such a potentially powerful intervention? Although a
host of variables (e.g. a strong supervisory alliance) seemingly contributes toward a favourable
supervision impact (Crocker & Sudak, 2017; Simpson-Southward, Waller & Hardy, 2017), I
would like to accentuate in this paper one particular set of affecting experiences — which I

International Journal of Psychotherapy: Mar. 2018, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 63-73: ISSN 1356-9082
Author and European Association of Psychotherapy (IJP): Reprints and permissions: www.ijp.org.uk
Submitted Feb 2018; peer-reviewed twice in Mar. 2018); re-formatted and revised Sept. 2018.
64 C. EDWARD WATKINS, JR.
call the ‘Supervisee’s Internal Representations of the Supervisor’ (SIRoS) — that appears to
play a potentially important role in facilitating the supervisee development process.
Adapting the definition of Knox, Goldberg, Woodhouse & Hill (1999), I define the
supervisee’s internal representations as follows: ‘Supervisees bringing to awareness the
internalized image (occurring in visual, auditory, felt presence, or combined forms) of
their supervisors when not actually with them in session’. Ideally, supervisees would store
functionally useful representations of their supervisor — and of the verbal and non- verbal
exchanges that occur during their supervisory sessions — and then apply these so as to impact
positively on both the client’s treatment and the therapist’s development processes (Geller,
Farber & Schaffer, 2010). I am therefore proposing that supervisee internal representations of
the supervisor can be a potent educational factor, reflected in and given appropriate gravitas
across all the perspectives of supervision.
Before proceeding, however, two limitations or qualifications about the following material
merit mention. First, although I consider both the potential positive and negative effects
of supervisor representations, I admittedly give primary focus to their positive impact. I
forever remain interested in what makes supervision work, am accordingly interested in how
supervisor representations may most constructively contribute toward that end, and that
interest is most reflected subsequently. But we now know that supervision can indeed be a
highly negative, even traumatizing, experience for far too many supervisees, accumulating
international data attest to that reality (e.g., Hendricks & Cartwright, 2018), and that very
disturbing, even alarming, reality (Ellis, 2001) should be born in mind in reading further.
Second, although I focus exclusively on how supervisors affect supervisees, supervision
admittedly is foremost a relationship that involves two engaged participants. I do not,
however, take up those situations where supervisees may not be engaged or ready participants
in the supervisory endeavor, and the reader is asked to bear that reality in mind as well.
Both of these limitations/qualifications provide further avenues for future consideration and
possible study with regard to the matter of supervisory representations.

Building a Bridge: From Patient/Therapist Internal Representations of the Other

to Supervisee Internal Representations of the Supervisor

Some of what follows could be thought of as reasoning by analogy — using “…the more
sophisticated psychotherapy literature… [to help] formulate and illuminate supervision in
some key, common areas” (Milne, 2006, p. 220). I draw primarily upon Geller and Farber’s
seminal work (Geller & Farber, 2015; Geller, Lehman & Farber, 2002) in explicating the
potential power of patients’ and therapists’ internal representations of the ‘other’ during the
treatment process, using this as a basis for thinking more specifically about the potential
power of supervisees’ internal representations of their supervisor in the supervision
process. In building that analogized bridge to supervision, I will first briefly summarize – as
background – some pertinent information about patient/therapist internal representations.
The construct of mental representation:
The concept of mental representation has a long and multi-layered history, addressed via
many disciplines and streams of thought, including philosophy, psychoanalysis, cognitive
processing, neuroscience and education (e.g. Crane, 2016). Mental representations can
be thought of as a component of information processing; like a cognitive building block
(Strasser, 2010). Sensory memory, short-term working memory and long-term memory
 THE SUPERVISEE’S INTERNAL SUPERVISOR REPRESENTATIONS 65
may each be eventually involved in the formation of such mental representations (Tangen &
Borders, 2017).
According to Sigel (2013), our history of trying to understand mental functioning across
the last 100 years reflects these broadly-evolving shifts: (a) the original embrace of mentalistic
models, where introspection was pre- eminently valued; (b) the emergence of behavioural
models, where mentalism was eschewed and behaviour and actions were pre- eminently
valued; and (c) the emergence of the now accepted position, where mental models again
are being favoured – with an emphasis being given to mental processes that incorporate
both language and thought. Self, Other and Self-in-relation-to-Other representations appear
to be widely reflected in and integral to the panoply of current theories of psychotherapy,
psychopathology and development (e.g., Auerbach, Levy, Schaffer & Stein, 2005). Cocking
(2013) has even proposed that ‘representation’ is now a unifying construct across the
behavioural and neural sciences.
Mental representations in therapy: An example.
Knox (2003), in her early review about clients’ internal representations, fittingly partially
entitled her paper: “I sensed you with me the other day”. That eight-word sentiment seems
to nicely and concisely capture the very essence of what representations are, the primary
purpose that they serve. The subsequent treatment example reflects representational impact
in action:
“You know, I was spending time with my family the other day, and we were all getting
back into our old nasty patterns, but instead of feeling upset and responding bitterly as I
usually do, I heard your calming voice and felt you with me, and I was able to get through the
situation without getting hurt.” (Knox, 2003, p. 2)
Patient/therapist internal representations of the other during treatment: What do we
know?
Representational research in psychotherapy thus far suggests that: (a) both therapist and
patient experience memories, images, and sensations (having visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic
properties) about the other; (b) therapist/patient representations can potentially be for
better or for worse; (c) therapists often access patient representations, when engaging in
treatment review and future preparation; (d) patients often access therapist representations,
when experiencing stressful events or situations; and (e) patient vividness of and tendency
to purposefully use therapist representations are favourably related to treatment outcome
(Bender et al., 2003; Farber & Geller, 1994; Geller & Farber, 1993, 2015; Geller et al., 2002;
Geller et al., 1981; Knox et al., 1999; Orlinsky et al., 1993; Rosenzweig et al., 1996).
It does indeed appear that “…what patients say, see, hear, think, and feel during therapy
sessions provides the raw materials out of which they construct schemata or mental models
of their relations with their therapists” (Orlinsky et al., 1993, p. 597). Such constructs as
schemata and mental models share one fundamental commonality: They describe the
organization of representation — how representations cohere into becoming representational
networks (Strasser, 2010).

Supervisor Representations: Why They Matter

Holding in mind: Memory, reverie, and representation

Just as patients’ internal representations of the therapist can play an important role in
the treatment process, supervisees’ internal representations of the supervisor can seemingly
play a similarly important role in the supervision process. Eitingon (1926) was perhaps the
66 C. EDWARD WATKINS, JR.
first person to raise the issue of internalization and its training impact: “Some of the more
gifted students accept en bloc the technique of their own analyst…but they follow him (sic)
too slavishly…” (italics in original; p. 133). Eitingon viewed supervision as a way to: (a)
counter or check trainees’ unreflective, idealized internalizations of the training analyst; and
(b) thereby stimulate beginning development of the therapist’s own unique sense of analytic
identity (Watkins, 2013). Fleming (1953) later talked about the developmental importance of
imitative learning, seemingly spurred on by the supervisee’s incorporation of some aspects
of the supervisor during supervision. In addition to imitation (copying), Hanlon (1990)
also accentuated two other modes of internalizing — introjection (swallowing whole) and
identification (taking in certain aspects of the other) — that can contribute to supervisees’
learning and their identity development as a therapist. Casement’s concept of ‘the internal
supervisor’, first proposed over 30 years ago (1985, 1993), perhaps remains most apt in
quintessentially capturing the notion of internalization via supervision.
Representations of the supervisor fundamentally involve the supervisee holding in mind
the supervisor, or some aspects of the supervisor. Internalizing — observing, taking in,
and retaining — occurs: that which is external becomes internal. Such internalizing, when
constructive in nature, can facilitate learning. Learning, internalization and representational
experience are seemingly inextricably intertwined (cf. Schaffer, 1968).
The internalization of a supervisory dialogue ideally serves as a way to test, apply and
accumulate gains made during supervision and as a vital mechanism for insuring the survival
of those very gains after the termination of supervision (c.f. Orlinsky et al., 1993). Thus,
such representational accessing allows for the supervisor-supervisee ‘dialogic partnership’ to
continue (Geller et al., 2010).
Some of what gets represented, some of what supervisees hold in mind, include: the
supervisor’s attitude or way of being; statements that offer guidance and direction in moments
of uncertainty; statements that express support for and belief in the therapist; and actions
that are instructive and helpful with the treatment. In working with clients, such holding in
mind may manifest specifically when the therapist/supervisee: recalls the calming, soothing,
reassuring presence of the supervisor; tries to repeat a statement, question, clarification, or
interpretation as the supervisor had (or might have) expressed it; and may even try to use
the supervisor’s tone of voice and tentative form of presentation (Geller et al., 2010; Knox et
al., 2014). For example, if we were to apply the refrain of ‘I sensed you with me the other day’
(Knox, 2003) to supervision, an example might look like this:
“You know, I was having difficulty in session the other day. My client returned to some
old behavior patterns and started acting them out with me. But instead of feeling
frustrated and responding prematurely, I heard your calming voice, remembered
some of your thoughts about how to respond to such acting out, and was better able to
do just that in the situation and help us work through it.” (adapted from Knox, 2003)
Other ways in which ‘I sensed you with me’ might be expressed specifically include: “I
tried to channel your laid- back manner…”; “I got ruffled in session, but kept hearing you
remind me to slow down, take it slow, don’t push the river, and that really helped….”; and “I
have to say, oftentimes, I don’t yet feel good about doing therapy. But you keep telling me
‘You can do this’, ‘You are doing this’. And I really hold onto and remind myself of that, when
in session.”.
Such statements reflect a form of ‘taking you with me’, the supervisee’s drawing on the
representational supervisor (or represented aspects of the supervisor) for comfort and
direction.
 THE SUPERVISEE’S INTERNAL SUPERVISOR REPRESENTATIONS 67
Supervisee internal representations of the supervisor during supervision: What do we
know?
Largely building on Geller and colleagues’ body of psychotherapy research (e.g. Geller &
Farber, 1993, 2015; Geller et al., 2002), our first ‘SIRoS’ studies have begun to emerge (e.g.,
Geller et al., 2010; Knox et al., 2014). Admittedly meagre in number, these studies suggest
that: (a) supervisees experience memories, images, and sensations (i.e. have visual, auditory
or kinesthetic images) about their supervisor; (b) supervisor representations can potentially
be for better or worse; (c) supervisees often access supervisor representations in order to
recapture what was discussed in supervision, to serve as a guide for intervention, or to offer
support when experiencing stressful therapeutic events or situations; and (d) supervisees’
creation and vividness of functionally useful patient representations are favourably related to
a positively-perceived, supervisor-supervisee alliance (Geller et al., 2010; Geller & Schaffer,
1992; Knox et al., 2014; Romei, 2003).
It may well be that: “…what [supervisees] say, see, hear, think, and feel during [supervision]
sessions provide the raw materials out of which they construct schemata or mental models
of their relations with their [supervisors]” — i.e. their representational network of the
supervisor-supervisee relationship (after Orlinsky et al., 1993, p. 597).
Supervisor representations for better or worse, as constructive or destructive.
Perhaps, when supervision is either effective or ineffective, adequate or inadequate, helpful
or harmful (e.g. Ellis, 2017), it may have much to do with the supervisor representations
that have evolved out of the numerous verbal and non- verbal exchanges that occur during
supervision sessions. Representations by definition are meaningful, purposeful, durable,
and enduring; although they may be created out of a single, powerful event (e.g. “When
that troubling situation happened, my supervisor acted immediately on my behalf, and
showed me that she backed me up.”), representations tend to be built up through a number
of ‘meaningful, purposeful, durable, and enduring’ actions within such interactions and
typically involve development over time. With supervisor representations being relationally
constructed, so much of what supervision is, so much of what supervision becomes, is still
all about the supervisor-supervisee relationship (Ellis, 2010; Friedlander & Shaffer, 2014).
Analogizing from Pawl and St. John (1998), we may always wish to bear in mind these
two orienting, developmentally-facilitative supervisory guideposts, that are: (a) who you are
as a supervisor is just as important as what you do; and (b) do unto others (supervisees) as
you would have others do unto others (the Platinum Rule1). Although we may not be able to
predict exactly what supervisees internalize representationally, we – as supervisors – would
seem best positioned to foster a ‘positive’ representational development through being richly
supportive ‘relationally’ and eminently facilitative ‘educationally’ (e.g. Tiuraniemi, 2016).
It may well be that the building-up of favourable supervisor representations, though but
being just one part of the supervision equation, increasingly and exponentially contributes
to positive supervisory processes and outcomes; whereas the building- up of unfavourable
supervisor representations, conversely, creates ‘negative’ supervision processes and outcomes
and makes these a far more probable and unavoidable reality.
A reading of supervision research and case examples, focused on conflict and conflict
management, would seem consistent with those probable outcomes (e.g. Bang & Goodyear,
1
The ‘Golden Rule’ implies the basic assumption that other people would like to be treated the way that you would
like to be treated. The complement to the Golden Rule is the Platinum Rule: „Treat others the way that you want
them to treat others.” The supervisory Platinum Rule thus is about acting toward our supervisees the very ways
that we want them to act toward their clients.
68 C. EDWARD WATKINS, JR.
2014; Ellis, 2017; Ellis et al., 2014; Ellis et al., 2015; Friedlander & Dubovi, 2015; Grant et al.,
2012; Gray et al., 2001; Nelson et al., 2008; Nelson & Friedlander, 2001; Wilson et al., 2016).

A developmental context
Supervisor representations perhaps can best be understood from within developmental
context (cf. Knox et al., 2014; Romei, 2003). Developmental theory and research suggest
that therapists in training are at their most vulnerable early on, when beginning to see their
first therapy clients (McNeill & Stoltenberg, 2016; Ronnestad & Skovholt, 2013). Supervision
at that particular time appears to play an acutely crucial role in facilitating the therapist/
supervisee’s development and getting the professional growth process started off most
favourably (Orlinsky & Ronnestad, 2005; Ronnestad & Skovholt, 2013).
It may be that, although having salience across the entirety of the supervisee development
process, supervisor representations matter most early on: their most crucial role is to
serve as developmentally transitional phenomena for beginning supervisees — when the
development of therapist identity, treatment skills/competencies, and the (new) therapist
sense of self-efficacy are potentially at their lowest point.
There are a number of factors that consistently appear helpful in building growth-
facilitative, supervisor representations: collaboratively crafting a developmentally-
sensitive supervisory place and space, creating a buffering, bolstering, supportive holding
environment, offering instruction/teaching interventions as educationally needed, and
manifesting commitment, respectfulness, patience, and humility (see Johnson, 2017; McNeill
& Stoltenberg, 2016; Ronnestad & Skovholt, 2013; Tiuraniemi, 2016; Watkins, Hook, Mosher
& Callahan, 2018).
Furthermore, as the therapist-supervisor process unfolds developmentally, it may be
that supervisees gradually build up a sufficient store of positive supervisor-representations,
increasingly build up their own favourable therapist self-representation or a sense of their
Therapist (or Practice) Self, so that this eventually crystallizes and establishes a solid sense
of being a professional Psychotherapist (cf. Friedman & Kaslow, 1986; Geller et al., 2010).
Ideally, an internal supervisor begins to evolve within the supervisee (Casement, 1993).
As the therapist growth process proceeds progressively toward higher levels of competency
and a consolidation of professional identity, the power and influence of such ‘supervisor
representations’ may become less acutely developmental sine qua non2.
Conversely, where the supervisor does not make such facilitative efforts, or if these
are actually antagonistic in nature, the result may well be that any resulting ‘supervisor
representations’ may actually hinder the supervisee’s growth, thereby stymying, or even
possibly derailing, the supervisee’s development process as a therapist (e.g., Ellis, 2017).
Thus, instead of serving as developmentally transitional phenomena, these ‘negative’
representations have an adverse effect — restricting and foreclosing learning possibilities. As
these can be very enduring in nature, such negatively-infused representations perhaps offer
one explanation for why hurtful, harmful supervision continues to be hurtful and harmful
long after the toxic supervisory relationship has ended. The supervisor continues to remain
representationally alive within the supervisee, as do the hurtful and harmful supervision
events that demarked (and defined) their relationship.
Supervisor representations across supervision perspectives.
I contend therefore that, as these ‘SIRoS’ play a key role in all forms of supervision, they
are a common factor that is pan-theoretically facilitative of the supervisee’s developmental
2
sine qua non: an essential condition or something that is absolutely necessary.
 THE SUPERVISEE’S INTERNAL SUPERVISOR REPRESENTATIONS 69
process. This process of ‘taking the supervisor with me’ seems to be present, in some respect
or to some degree, as a vital component of the supervisee’s learning experience, whether the
perspective of the supervision be psychotherapeutically-focused, developmental, or social
role in nature. Be it framed as ‘imitation’, ‘incorporation’, ‘internalization’, ‘representation’, or
some combination of these, this ‘drawing on, learning from, or taking in’ a representation of
the supervisor appears to be: a natural part of learning about therapy; a natural part of the
therapist’s (supervisee’s) development process; and a natural part of developing one’s own
sense of a ‘Practice Self ’ (cf. McNeill & Stoltenberg, 2016; Ronnestad & Skovholt, 2013).
Some modality-specific examples (in some cases overlapping) by which we see such
representational reflection in supervision are: (a) the supervisor as an (Jungian) archetype
(e.g. the ‘Mentor’ – viz: Corbett, 1995); (b) attachment working models and/or representations
(e.g. supervisor as a secure base – viz: McKibben & Webber, 2017); (c) the supervisor as
teacher/educator (cognitive-behavioural – viz: Milne & Reiser, 2017); (d) the supervisor as a
model of presence and relational/attitudinal facilitation (humanistic/existential – viz: Krug
& Schneider, 2016); (e) the supervisor as a developmental tailor — ‘customizing’ or ‘tailoring’
the supervision to best match the developmental learning or role needs of the supervisee
(developmental, social role/process, and integrative – viz: Holloway, 2016; McNeill &
Stoltenberg, 2016; Norcross & Popple, 2017); (f) the supervisor as a model of competence
and competence development (Falender & Shafranske, 2017); and, finally (g) the supervisor
as a ‘guardian’ of the client’s welfare (Falender & Shafranske, 2017).
Whatever the supervisory perspective deployed, all these types of supervisor
representations have properties of being both medium and message: as a medium, they open
up (or free up) possibilities for representational enactments (e.g. where the teacher-educator-
supervisor is desired – and expected –to offer teaching and education and is reinforced for
doing so); as a message, they convey different valued supervisory ways of being and acting,
that accordingly have therapeutic value as well (depending on the different modalities).
Other single, image-evoking, representation-laden words that appear to cut across
– and have meaning in all the different supervision perspectives – are: ‘Collaborator’,
‘Facilitator’, ‘Listener’, ‘Teacher’, ‘Supporter’, and ‘Champion’ (of the supervisee) (see Bernard
& Goodyear, 2014; Watkins, 2017a, 2017b). I maintain that – ideally – we, as supervisors,
forever continually strive to embody such words, images and/or representations with our
supervisees, and – when and where and how we are successful in doing so – the supervision
itself is increasingly apt to be successful.
Looking ahead: SIRoS research.
Research possibilities around ‘SIRoS’ appear to be wide open. The very few SIRoS studies
to date provide some constructive ideas for future inquiry: (a) the Supervisory Representation
Inventory (SRI; Geller et al., 2010), while showing promise as a representational measure,
could benefit from a re-examination of its factor structure and further work to solidify its
reliability and validity; (b) far greater diversification of study participants is needed (with the
vast portion of subjects being thus far white females from the United States); (c) the potential
impacts of critical individual difference variables (e.g. personality, developmental level and
attachment style) on ‘SIRoS’ have yet to be investigated and so require further study; and
(d) to foster greater understanding, research that examines more broadly the contextual,
interacting nature of representations across the supervision triad — taking into account the
supervisee’s, the supervisor’s and the patient’s representations — will ultimately be needed
(cf. Geller et al., 2010; Knox et al., 2014; Romei, 2003).
70 C. EDWARD WATKINS, JR.
Conclusion
Supervisees’ representations of their supervisors appear to matter and matter greatly.
I contend that ‘SIRoS’ is a facilitative educational factor, critical across all supervision
perspectives, that involves the supervisee’s ‘taking in’ and ‘taking with’ — i.e. internalizing
and drawing on the supervisor as a dialogic partner and accessing her/him for purposes of
growth and development. Though potentially for better or worse, ‘SIRoS’ are ideally and
eminently facilitative, developmentally-transitional phenomena — helping supervisees to
broaden and build, to launch and liberate, in their process of becoming excellent therapists.

Author:

C. Edward Watkins, Jr., Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology, University of North Texas (USA).
His primary supervision interests focus on psychoanalytic, trans-theoretical, and common
factors perspectives. He is also the editor of the Handbook of Psychotherapy Supervision
(1997), and co-editor (with Derek Milne) of the Wiley International Handbook of Clinical
Supervision (2014).
E-mail: watkinsc@unt.edu

He reports no conflicts of interest.

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