Opportunities Missed: The Impact of Power in Supervision and Supervisee Self-Disclosure Within Academia

Description:

Clinical supervision is a requirement for Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs) to hone their skills and ensure ethical practice. Although there is research on supervision, reports often focus on supervisee experiences that occur at the associate license level rather than pre-licensed clinicians still in a training program. Despite the supervision research across fields, we still know little about what makes supervision effective (Rousmaniere et al., 2016). However, we do know that the Supervisor Working Alliance (SWA) is a common factor of effective supervision. This alliance becomes complex when we consider the intersectionality of gender, race, culture, hierarchal structures, and the inherent power dynamics that are at play (Green & Dekkers, 2010; McKibben et al., 2019). Added to this, pre-licensed clinicians receiving clinical supervision in the world of academia experience compounded power structures as their supervisors are often their professors or academic advisors. Therefore, one of the reasons that supervision may be less effective for some is due to these power dynamics hindering the alliance. More specifically, the effects of power differentials and dual relationships may inhibit supervisee disclosure of clinically imperative self-of-the-therapist challenges.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to –

1. Identify common barriers that clinical supervisees face, such as misogyny, racial prejudices, and power differentials due to the hierarchical nature of the supervisory relationship.
2. Discuss issues that may arise due to the intersectionality of contextual factors and power differentials in academic settings that limit a supervisee’s ability to disclose clinically imperative self-of-the-therapist issues.
3. Explore techniques that bring awareness to their biases and way-of-being in the supervisory working alliance and facilitate safety required for supervisee disclosure.