Ten Changes Psychotherapists Typically Make as They Mature Into

the Role of Supervisor

Rodney Goodyear,1 James W. Lichtenberg,2 Keeyeon Bang,3
and Janee Both Gragg4
1
University of Redlands and University of Houston
2
University of Kansas
3
Cyber University of Korea
4
University of Redlands

Stage models have largely informed scholarship on supervisor developmental processes. We argue
that understanding this development as occurring along dimensions is more useful for both supervision
practitioners and educators as well as for those engaged in research on supervisor development.
Building on the work of Heid (1997) and working with a panel of 7 supervision experts, we identify 10
themes and validate their salience to supervisor development using a sample of 22 clinical supervisors.
We describe and elaborate on each theme, and then present and discuss a case vignette that illustrates
many of the supervisor developmental themes.  C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Clin. Psychol.: In

Session 70:1042–1050, 2014.

Keywords: clinical supervision; supervisor development; training; stages

Virtually all psychotherapists eventually take on the role of supervisor (Rønnestad, Orlinsky,
Parks, & Davis, 1997). Ideally, they will have prepared for this role through formal training
(Bernard & Goodyear, 2014). But whether they have or not, each novice supervisor will have
the task of determining “the type of work that has to be done [and then will have to] . . . make
the role his or her own” (Ögren, Boëthius, & Sundin, 2008, p. 5). As they do this, each will
experience changes in perspective, attitudes, and capabilities. This article discusses 10 of the
most predictable of those changes.
The development of competence in any domain requires more than knowledge and skill
acquisition (Epstein & Hundert, 2002). Dall’Alba (2009) notes:

Learning to become a professional involves not only what we know and can do,
but also who we are (becoming). It involves the integration of knowing, acting, and
being in the form of professional ways of being that unfold over time. (p. 34)

If psychology educators are to be more effective in preparing supervisors for their role and
providing them necessary support, then it is important to know what psychological processes
supervisors typically will encounter as they gain experience. Novice supervisors will profit as
well from being able to anticipate what they will encounter.

Supervisor Development: Discontinuous Stages or Dimensional Change?

The most prominent models of supervisor development have conceptualized supervisors’
changes as occurring in stages through which supervisors progress (e.g., Hess, 1987;

We appreciate the following people for their feedback concerning the developmental themes: Janine Bernard,
Mike Ellis, Clara Hill, Nick Ladany, Tom Skovholt, Cal Stoltenberg, and Ed Watkins. We acknowledge the
support of the Otsego Group at stages in the preparation of this manuscript.

Please address correspondence to: Rodney K. Goodyear, School of Education, University of Redlands,
Redlands, CA 92373. E-mail: rod_goodyear@redlands.edu

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY: IN SESSION, Vol. 70(11), 1042–1050 (2014) 

C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jclp). DOI: 10.1002/jclp.22125

 Supervisor Development 1043

Rodenhauser, 1997; Stoltenberg & McNeill, 2010; Watkins, 1993). These models suggest that
each stage depends on and is qualitatively different from the one that precedes it and is char-
acterized by particular tasks. To illustrate, consider the following example: Hess suggested that
the initial stage of being a new supervisor is characterized by adjusting to the new role, by a
focus on the client (versus the supervisee), and a teaching role; the second of his three proposed
stages is characterized by greater confidence in both oneself and the effects of supervision as
well as a vulnerability to being too intrusive with the supervisee. But despite the intuitive appeal
of stage models, it has been difficult to verify that supervisors indeed progress through stages in
this manner (see Russell & Petrie, 1994). We argue that the more useful alternative perspective
is one in which supervisor development occurs along particular dimensions (see Heid, 1997).
Such a dimensional perspective was used in developing the dominant measure of supervisor
development, the Psychotherapy Supervisor Development Scale (PSDS; Watkins, Schneider,
Hayes, & Nieberding, 1995). Watkins and his colleagues designed the PSDS on the basis of four
dimensions they found reflected across the stages of Watkins’ (1990) supervisor development
theory. These dimensions are a supervisor’s focus on (a) competence, (b) self-awareness, (c)
identity, and (d) felt-autonomy. Barnes and Moon (2006) later generally confirmed this structure
of the PSDS using factor analysis.
Heid (1997) gave explicit attention to a dimensional perspective, identifying 10 dimensions
through her examination of four supervisor development models (Alonzo, 1983; Hess, 1986,
1987; Stoltenberg & McNeill, 2010; Watkins, 1993). Although hers stands as the most significant
attempt to date to identify the dimensions along which supervisors develop, it remains one
person’s impressions regarding supervisor development and has yet to be subjected to empirical
validation.
Our purpose in writing this article is to extend Heid’s work. In particular, we wanted to
use a more systematic approach to identify the key psychological changes novice supervisors
typically make as they mature professionally. An operative word in this case is “typically,”
for although scholars have suggested the kinds of skills and attitudes that supervisors should
develop (e.g., Falender et al., 2004), this does not mean that they necessarily do. One example
is the development of multicultural awareness and sensitivity in the role of supervisor. Whereas
we and many others (e.g., Fouad et al., 2009) believe it essential that individuals develop such
awareness and sensitivity in their role as supervisors, this may or may not occur, depending in
part on the availability of educators and supervisors to guide that development. This is not to
minimize the importance of such areas of supervisor development. Rather, the fact that these
areas of development do not necessarily occur with simple experience speaks to the importance
of providing supervisors-to-be with systematic preparation for their roles.

The Study
We used our own understandings of the supervision literature to review and modify the 10
themes Heid (1997) identified as being normative in the development of all supervisors. We then
asked seven supervision experts to review our list and then suggest deletions, clarifications, and
additions. We used their feedback to develop the list of themes summarized in Table 1. To be
included on this list, a particular theme had to (a) concern normative processes rather than
those that were aspirational and (b) be of a psychological nature rather than concerning the
development of a particular skill.
We recruited supervisors whom we knew, to serve as participants and to forward our request
for participation to other supervisors. Our sample comprised 22 (13 female, 9 male) supervisors
whose mean age was 52.65 (standard deviation [SD] = 7.86). Their experience as a clinical
supervisor ranged from 2 to 37 years (mean [M] = 18.47; SD = 9.54). Almost all were clinical
(N = 6) or counseling (N = 14) psychologists, though one respondent reported being a social
worker and one did not indicate a profession. Most of the participants reported that their work
settings were college or university counseling centers (11; 50%); the remaining reported hospital
or medical settings (seven; 31.8%), community mental health centers (two; 9.1%), departmental
clinics (one; 4.5%), and one did not provide work setting information.
1044 Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session, November 2014

Table 1
Supervisor Ratings of Salience of Each Theme to Supervisor Development

Salience
ratings/Experience
Developmental themes M SD correlations

1. Becoming able to perceive/act on complex response 5.92 0.84 .11

opportunities
2. Learning to think like a supervisor 5.78 1.12 .17
3. Developing the ability to be oneself 5.72 1.11 .27
4. Learning to view one’s self as a supervisor 5.67 1.10 .02
5. Developing the capacity to use reflection as a tool to 5.66 1.24 –.13
monitor one’s biases and one’s impact on others.
6. Developing confidence in one’s judgments about what 5.56 1.13 .39
constitutes effective counseling
7. Developing confidence in one’s competence as a 5.51 1.40 .39
supervisor
8. Developing patience with the process of supervisee 5.47 1.16 .34
development
9. Developing the courage to do the right thing in the 5.39 1.29 .41
gatekeeper role
10. Learning to understand and manage power 5.28 1.28 –.17

Note. M = mean; SD = standard deviation.

Participants were directed to an online survey that asked them to indicate the extent to which
each of the 10 themes occurs as a typical aspect of supervisor development, using a 7-point
scale ranging from 1(not at all central in the development of supervisors as they gain experience)
to 7 (quite central in the development of supervisors as they gain experience). Our intent was to
answer the following question: What is the mean level of salience this sample of supervisors
would accord to each of the themes?
Those results are summarized in Table 1, ordered from the theme that was rated highest
(becoming able to perceive a range of diverse and sometimes complex response opportunities and
making appropriate choices from among them) to the one that was rated lowest (developing the
ability to be oneself rather than follow a prescribed approach or model rigidly). Importantly, even
the lowest-rated themes were rated highly overall (i.e., the lowest was M = 5.43 on a 7-point
scale).
Because the premise of this study was that supervisors change with experience, it made sense
to us that supervisors in our sample who differed by experience level also would differ in their
perspectives on the salience of each of these proposed themes. Therefore, our second research
question was as follows: What is the relationship between amount of supervisory experience and
the salience ratings participants gave each theme? These correlations between experience and the
rating given to each theme are summarized in Table 1. Most correlations were negligible, but 4
of the 10 met Cohen’s (1992) criterion for a medium effect size for correlations (between .30 and
.49). In each of those cases (e.g., “Developing the courage to do the right thing in the gatekeeper
role”) having greater experience as a supervisor predicted ascribing greater importance to the
particular theme.

The 10 Themes
In what follows, we elaborate on each of the 10 themes. We have organized the material to
address the themes in the same order as depicted in Table 1, i.e., from that which was rated as
most salient to supervisor development to that rated as least salient.
 Supervisor Development 1045

Theme One: Becoming Able to Perceive/Act On Complex Response Opportunities

It is our impression that it is only after assuming the mantle of supervisor that a person fully
understands just how complex the role is—that he or she needs to be competent as not only
a clinician but also an educator. Whereas a psychotherapist is concerned with managing a
relationship with a client and intervening to help improve functioning, a supervisor needs to
(a) ensure that the supervisee is doing this with the client while (b) also ensuring that the
supervisee is developing necessary competence. Occasionally, these two responsibilities can be
at odds with one another (e.g., when a supervisee’s performance is such that the client needs to
be reassigned), which only adds to the complexity. That the supervisors in our sample rated this
theme the highest of the 10 on salience speaks to their recognition of this complexity.

Theme Two: Learning to Think Like a Supervisor

Members of any profession have characteristic ways of thinking about the problems of practice
that are within that profession’s domain, including where to focus attention, what information
to attend to, and which attitudes and perspectives to adopt that inform both interactions with
others and how information is processed. To accept this way of thinking is an important aspect
of being socialized into that profession as well as into particular roles within that profession.
Years of graduate school and thousands of hours of practica and internships help to ensure that
by the time psychologists are licensed to practice, they will have learned to think as a psychologist
in the role of psychotherapist.
But they will have had little or even no opportunity to learn to think like a psychologist who
is in the role of supervisor. Learning to do that is, therefore, a key developmental task for anyone
who takes on that role, and so it is not surprising that our respondents rated this as being so
salient to supervisor development. Borders (1992) discussed the multiple indicators that novice
supervisors have not yet begun thinking like supervisors. For example, if asked to take notes on a
video of a supervisee’s work prior to an anticipated supervision session, these supervisors’ notes
more likely focused on client rather than supervisee behavior; in addition, these supervisors
more likely understood shortcomings in supervisee performance in terms of the supervisee’s
psychological dynamics (e.g., resistance) than in terms of skill deficits. Borders also speculated
that the longer a person had been a psychotherapist prior to becoming a supervisor, the more
entrenched these perspectives might be and so the more difficulty in learning to think like a
supervisor.

Theme Three: Developing the Ability to Be Oneself

In assuming any new role, it is natural to emulate others who are seen as models. In fact, it is
typical for novice psychotherapists to perceive that there are right and wrong ways of behaving
(Stoltenberg & McNeill, 2010), only later then to begin giving up that assumption. In the case
of new supervisors, it is likely that their role models are their own supervisors and the cognitive
templates they use are theoretical models—those they either have derived from their models of
psychotherapy or developed specifically for supervision (see Bernard & Goodyear, 2014).
But Rønnestad and Skovholt (2003) found in their studies of psychotherapists across the lifes-
pan that the longer psychotherapists are in practice, the more individualized their approaches to
psychotherapy. Therefore, we hypothesize that this applies to psychologists’ work as supervisors
as well. This increasingly individualized approach is achieved by reflecting on one’s own practice
and its effects, which, significantly, is another of the developmental themes (Theme Five).
We would offer the obvious caveat, though, that “being oneself” in the supervisory role is
a relative matter. Standards of practice for our profession, for example, will continue to guide
us. Also, it is not so much that we give up prior models and learning as that we incorporate
prior learning into new understandings. Geller, Farber, and Schaffer (2010) have documented the
extent to which internal representations of their supervisors guide supervisee’s reflections and
decision making; a psychotherapist in Rønnestad and Skovholt’s (2003) study reported hearing
one particular internalized supervisor’s voice 20 years after they worked together. Whereas those
1046 Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session, November 2014

studies concerned psychotherapists, presumably supervisors have a similar experience with their
own supervisors and others whom they find highly credible.

Theme Four: Learning to View One’s Self as a Supervisor

This fourth theme is about professional identity, which is consistent with Barnes and Moon’s
(2006) empirical confirmation of the centrality of identity development for supervisors who
are growing into their role. Pratt, Rockmann, and Kaufmann (2006) made the point that a
person’s professional identity will continue to evolve as she or he assumes different roles within
a profession, as is the case when a psychologist adds the role of supervisor to his or her already
existing role of psychotherapist. Pratt et al. (2006) observed that the goal of this process is to
develop work-identity integrity:

We use the term “integrity” not only because it implies consistency between who
one is and what one does, but also because it implies a sound structure, such as
when one speaks of the integrity of a bridge. (pp. 241–242)

Theme Five: Developing the Capacity to Use Reflection as a Tool to Monitor One’s
Biases and One’s Effect On Others
Developing self-awareness was another of the developmental themes for supervisors that Barnes
and Moon (2006) confirmed empirically. Reflection is the means by which that self-awareness
can be developed. This is not entirely new to psychologists who take on the role of supervisor,
for they already should have been established this capacity in their work as psychotherapists.
However, being a supervisor requires that he or she extends these skills to a new and more
complex domain.
Monitoring biases and effects on others is a more specific instance of the broader capacity
for reflective practice, which is an expected supervisory competence (see Fouad et al., 2009).
Goodyear (2014) has made the case that effective reflective practice is a developmental process.
It is natural to look back critically on events (internal as well as behavioral) that are confus-
ing, unexpected, or upsetting, which are typical triggers for a reflective process (see Neufeldt,
Karno, & Nelson, 1996). But critical reflection speaks to both having an internal template for
determining expected or correct responses and a willingness to engage in a sort of internalized
hypothesis testing that goes beyond a confirmatory stance, that is, to seek, attend to, and remem-
ber information that will confirm impressions that the person already has formed (e.g., about
the supervisee or client; see, for example, Nickerson, 1998). The first of these (learning expected
or correct responses) develops over time; the second (a disconfirmatory stance) is more difficult
to develop as it is such an ingrained human approach to problem solving. We believe that this is
likely to occur only through the sort of attitude change that is achieved through having had an
effective supervisor.

Theme Six: Developing Confidence in One’s Judgments About What Constitutes

Effective Counseling
To be an effective supervisor, a person needs to have had essential clinical skills to conduct
the practices which they are supervising. But the role of supervisor affords a new perspective
on that process—a chance to step back and examine clinical practice more dispassionately as
it is enacted by their supervisees. Years ago, Reisman (1965) proposed the “helper therapy”
principle: The notion that the person who provides help will often get as much or more out of
that experience than the intended recipient. One way of “growing” is to better understand the
work of the psychotherapist, to be able to step back and scrutinize it in a way that is not possible
when one is immersed in what Schön (1983) referred to as the “swampy lowlands” of practice
(p. 42).
But this growth is only possible to the extent that the supervisor is sampling supervisee–
client behavior directly (vs. relying, for example, on the supervisee’s self-reports, which is the
 Supervisor Development 1047

most frequently used supervision modality; Goodyear & Nelson, 1997). The use of audio or
video recordings or, better, direct observation represents best practices in supervision while also
providing the incidental benefit of the opportunity to study psychotherapy processes and their
effects.

Theme Seven: Developing Confidence in One’s Competence as a Supervisor

This was one of the several themes that seemed to grow more important to supervisors as they
gained experience (see correlations in Table 1). Almost any new supervisor will feel anxious (see,
e.g., Ellis & Douce, 1994), just as is true for anyone who takes on a new role with significant
responsibilities. Most supervisors, though, find that anxiety gradually dissipates as they gain
confidence in their supervisory competence. Implicit in achieving this confidence is that they will
have a fundamental confidence in the service that they are providing. In this regard, Watkins
(2013) observed “that supervisors, to be optimally effective, must come to truly and deeply
believe in the power of supervision” (p. 146).
We hypothesize that this confidence develops relatively quickly. And to the extent that we can
extrapolate from research on psychotherapists, we can assume that increases in self-estimates
of ability generally will exceed gains in actual competence (Dawes, 1994). Notably, Walfish,
McAlister, O’Donnell, and Lambert (2012) found that none of the psychotherapists in their
sample rated themselves as below average in ability, although one would expect half of them to
have met that criterion. In short, whereas developing confidence in ones’ role as a supervisor is
an important developmental task, that confidence should correspond with the novice supervi-
sor’s actual level of competence. This speaks to the importance of novice supervisors receiving
supervision of their own work to help them accurately calibrate the self-estimates of competence.

Theme Eight: Developing Patience With the Process of Supervisee Development

Anyone taking on a new role will be somewhat self-focused (I wonder how I am doing? What
should I be doing next?). To the extent this is true in supervision, the new supervisor will
have diminished empathy for the supervisee. In their eagerness to be successful and because
they still are developing the capacity to “think like a supervisor” (see Theme Two above),
novice supervisors can be prone to engage in what could be understood as psychotherapy by
remote control (Beddoe, 2010), focusing on the client rather than attending to the supervisee’s
training needs. It is only as she or he (a) begins to focus more on the trainee’s functioning
than the client’s and (b) begins to relax into the role that she or he can begin to see the world
from the supervisee’s eyes and recognize where they are with respect to development. In their
interviews with wise supervisors, Nelson, Barnes, Evans, and Triggiano (2008) observed that
“many mentioned exercising patience and flexibility” (p. 179).

Theme Nine: Developing the Courage to Do the Right Thing in the Gatekeeper Role
Supervisors are responsible for supervisee development and for the welfare of the immediate
clients being served (Bernard & Goodyear, 2014). But as well, they have an ethical respon-
sibility to the broader society, especially to potential future clients. As a result, gatekeeping
is an important ethical imperative for supervisors (Goodyear & Rodolfa, 2012). This can be
quite uncomfortable for the supervisor who needs to impose a remediation plan or, even more
significantly, to be instrumental in a supervisee being removed from a training program.
Courage to do the right thing as a gatekeeper was one of the several developmental themes
that our respondents as a group rated relatively lower than other themes in salience to supervisor
development, but for which there was a relatively robust moderating effect size for supervisor
experience, that is, the more experience the supervisor, the more salient she or he saw this theme
to supervisor development. One could infer that this means that the longer a supervisor is in that
role, the more likely she or he will have witnessed—first hand or secondarily—the challenges of
being a gatekeeper.
1048 Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session, November 2014

Theme 10: Learning to Understand and Manage Power

We believe power is most easily understood as the ability to influence another to do something
(see French & Raven, 1959). Certainly there are power differences between psychotherapists and
clients, but the power is more explicit in supervisor–supervisee relationships as it derives primar-
ily from supervision being an evaluative context. However, some types of power come simply
because of the socially sanctioned role accorded the supervisor, and other types are related to
gender and racial and ethnic status (Ryde, 2000). Learning to appropriately manage the power in-
herent in the supervisory relationship is an essential task for all supervisors (see Frawley-O’Dea,
2003); managing that power can be especially challenging for feminist supervisors (Falender,
2009).
Power struggles can occur when the supervisor is uncomfortable with his or her power (Ellis
& Douce, 1994). Perhaps the first step for the novice supervisor, then, is to become as fully
aware as possible of the power she or he has and from what sources as well as how supervisees
are responding to it (e.g., through resistant behavior). That awareness can not only allow more
effective work as a supervisor but also illuminate how gender and cultural factors affect the
appropriate empowerment of the supervisee (Nelson & Holloway, 1990).

Case Vignette
Joe Reynolds is a 32-year-old European American psychologist who has been licensed 3 years
and works in a university counseling center. He is midway through his first year as a supervisor
in the counseling center’s American Psychological Association (APA)-accredited internship, his
first experience of having functioned autonomously as a supervisor. His supervisee, Angela
Epps, is a 27-year-old African American woman. As with most graduates of APA-accredited
psychology programs, Dr. Reynolds was exposed as a graduate student to supervision theory
and then, as an intern, had the opportunity to supervise practicum students under supervision.
But that was several years ago. Although his colleagues are available for consultation as he
assumes this role, his work as a supervisor is not being supervised.
In their first session together, Dr. Reynolds developed a supervision contract with Ms. Epps
that spelled out mutual expectations in their work together, how and when evaluation would
occur, supervisory coverage in emergencies, and so on. As well, Dr. Reynolds decided to begin
with a frank discussion of their differences in gender and race and he invited Ms. Epps to further
discuss these differences should they seem to ever to be affecting their work, promising that he
would as well.
During their early work together, Dr. Reynolds maintained a primary focus on the client’s
dynamics and functioning and was quite prescriptive with respect to interventions Ms. Epps
would conduct with the client. Only gradually, and with consultative feedback from a more
senior staff colleague, did he begin to focus more on Ms. Epp’s training needs and to give her
more autonomy in articulating directions she thought should be taken in the treatment of her
clients.
Later in the term, he began to realize that she might be functioning below expectations, but
that it was difficult to know with any certainty as he had been relying on her verbal reports. This
prompted the realization that to be an effective supervisor he would need to have access to his
supervisees’ actual in-session behavior, and so he began to require that Ms. Epps either bring
audio or video recordings or allow him to observe her live. Now that he had direct data on what
was occurring between Ms. Epps and her clients, he realized that he was not only much clearer
about her work but also beginning to see nuances in treatment the practice of psychotherapy that
had not been afforded him prior to becoming a supervisor, when he had only the vantage point of
a psychotherapist. In short, he was pleased to find himself learning more about psychotherapy,
which he had not expected would be a benefit of supervision.
But even with this additional clarity about her in-session behavior that these observations
afforded, he found it difficult to deliver critical feedback, a difficulty compounded by his fear
of being perceived as racist. As a result, the feedback he offered her about performance deficits
was often vaguely delivered.
 Supervisor Development 1049

At the midterm of the internship—a formal evaluation point—when she clearly was function-
ing below expectations, he struggled about whether it was fair to put her on a remediation plan.
He was particularly worried that it would seem punitive, which seemed unfair in light of his
believing he had failed her by not providing the specific and clear feedback she could have used.
In consultation with his more senior colleagues, he came to realize that as uncomfortable as he
was with this gatekeeping responsibility and regardless of his possible role in her performance
deficits, a remediation plan was fair to her in that it gave her a chance to address her competency
shortcomings and maximize the likelihood that her internship would be successful.
At midyear, the convention at the counseling center was to rotate supervisor–supervisee
assignments and so he now is supervising someone different. Based on his first experience
with supervision, he now has formed a peer supervision-of-supervision group at the center as
a deliberate effort to grow. With their feedback as well as with the foundational experiential
knowledge he gained during his first experience as a supervisor, he now finds himself better to
reflect critically on his supervision practice and make (what seems to him, anyway) increasingly
better decisions. As he is doing that, his confidence in his work has grown considerably

Discussion
This vignette illustrates some of the 10 themes we have described. Because the situation it depicts
occurs over a relatively short period, there are themes that are not clearly present or are present
at only a very nascent level. For example, in this case, with a supervisee who was struggling
with competence issues, the supervisors’ development of patience with her development was
challenged and his development of “the ability to be oneself” will continue to develop as he
continues to master some of the basics of being a new supervisor.
Although these themes we discussed were developed with the input of supervision experts
and validated through the ratings of supervisors, our sample was small and so the study should
be considered exploratory. Also, whereas we offer these as 10 themes that are especially salient
to supervisor development, there may be others that should be included as essential themes.
We also believe it important to examine how formal supervision of supervision affects a novice
supervisor’s progression along each of these themes. Our vignette depicted a novice supervisor
who was typical of most who first take on that role: His agency assumed his competence as a
supervisor and so he was left to learn as he worked. How would his first supervisory experience
have been different if his work had been monitored or if he had received ongoing support and
feedback as he assumed this role? A related question is how his experience would have been
different if he simply had received a more extensive exposure to the theoretical and research
literature on supervision during his doctoral training.
Because our author team represents two different countries, we discussed among ourselves
how these themes generalize to other cultures. Supervision is essential worldwide in the prepa-
ration of psychotherapists, but there are important cultural expectations about relationships,
especially in Asia’s Confucian-influenced countries (see, e.g., Bang & Park, 2009). How might
culture, then, affect both the salience of these themes and a novice supervisor’s progression
through them?
Finally, we want to return to an assertion that we made at the outset of this article: that
supervisors should be provided formal training for their role. This should include not only expo-
sure to the key literature but also the opportunity for supervised experience as a supervisor. We
hope that those who provide supervision of supervision will be able to use the 10 developmental
themes we have discussed here to help novice supervisors as they assume their new professional
role.

Selected References and Recommended Reading

Alonzo, A. (1983). A developmental theory of psychodynamic supervision. The Clinical Supervisor, 1(3),
23–36.
Bang, K., & Park, J. (2009). Korean supervisors’ experiences in clinical supervision. The Counseling
Psychologist, 37, 1042–1075.
1050 Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session, November 2014

Barnes, K. L., & Moon, S. M. (2006). Factor structure of the Psychotherapy Supervisor Development Scale.
Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 39, 130–140.
Bernard, J. M., & Goodyear, R. K. (2014). Fundamentals of clinical supervision (5th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson.
Borders, L. D. (1992). Learning to think like a supervisor. The Clinical Supervisor, 10(2), 135–148.
Dall’Alba, G. (2009). Learning professional ways of being: Ambiguities of becoming. Educational Philoso-
phy and Theory, 41, 34–45.
Ellis, M. V., & Douce, L. A. (1994). Group supervision of novice clinical supervisors: Eight recurring issues.
Journal of Counseling & Development, 72(5), 520–525.
Epstein, R. M., & Hundert, E. M. (2002). Defining and assessing professional competence. Journal of the
American Medical Association, 287, 226–235.
Falender, C. A. (2009). Relationship and accountability: Tensions in feminist supervision. Women & Ther-
apy, 33(1–2), 22–41.
French, J. R. P., & Raven, B. (1959). Bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power.
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Geller, J. D., Farber, B. A., & Schaffer, C. E. (2010). Representations of the supervisory dialogue and the
development of psychotherapists. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 47(2), 211–220.
Goodyear, R. K. (2014). Supervision as pedagogy: Attending to its essential instructional and learning
processes. The Clinical Supervisor, 33, 82–99.
Goodyear, R. K., & Rodolfa, E. (2012). Negotiating the complex ethical terrain of clinical supervision. In
S. J. Knapp, M. C. Gottlieb, M. M. Handelsman, & L. D. VandeCreek (Eds.), APA handbook of ethics
in psychology, Vol 2: Practice, teaching, and research, (Vol. 2, pp. 261–276). Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
Heid, L. (1997). Supervisor development across the professional lifespan. The Clinical Supervisor, 16,
139–152.
Hess, A. K. (1987). Psychotherapy supervision: Stages, Buber, and a theory of relationship. Professional
Psychology: Research & Practice, 18, 251–259.
Nelson, M. L., Barnes, K. L., Evans, A. L., & Triggiano, P. J. (2008). Working with conflict in clinical
supervision: Wise supervisors’ perspectives. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55, 172–184.
Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General
Psychology, 2(2), 175–220.
Ögren, M.-L., Boëthius, S. B., & Sundin, E. C. (2008). From psychotherapist to supervisor: The significance
of group format and supervisors’ function as role models in supervisor training. Nordic Psychology, 60,
3–23.
Pratt, M. G., Rockmann, K. W., & Kaufmann, J. B. (2006). Constructing professional identity: The role of
work and identity learning cycles in the customization of identity among medical residents. Academy of
Management Journal, 49(2), 235–262.
Reisman, F. (1965). The ‘helper’ therapy principle. Social Work, 10, 27–37.
Rodenhauser, P. (1997). Psychotherapy supervision: Prerequisites and problems in the process. In C. E.
Watkins (Ed.), Handbook of psychotherapy supervision (pp. 527–548). New York: John Wiley.
Rønnestad, M. H., Orlinsky, D. E., Parks, B. K., & Davis, J. D. (1997). Supervisors of psychotherapy:
Mapping experience level and supervisory confidence. European Psychologist, 2, 191–201.
Rønnestad, M. H., & Skovholt, T. M. (2003). The journey of the counselor and therapist: Research findings
and perspectives on professional development. Journal of Career Development, 30, 5–44.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
Stoltenberg, C. D., & McNeill, B. W. (2010). IDM Supervision: An integrative developmental model for
supervising counselors & therapists (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Walfish, S., McAlister, B., O’Donnell, P., & Lambert, M. J. (2012). An investigation of self-assessment bias
in mental health providers. Psychological Reports, 110, 639–644.
Watkins, C. E., Jr. (1990). Development of the psychotherapy supervisor. Psychotherapy, 27, 553–560.