Kimberly Keiser & Associates places a high value on ongoing supervision, consultation and training, and development for our team. Continuing to develop our clinical, analytical, and interpersonal skills as mental healthcare providers is a company value that is woven into everything we do. Since its inception, our team meets multiple times per week for peer group training and individual or group clinical supervision. 

We’re excited to announce that clinical group supervision for AASECT sex therapy certification and clinical consultation services are now available for licensed professionals located throughout the United States.  

What Is Clinical Supervision?

Clinical supervision is defined by Janine M. Bernard and Rodney K. Goodyear (2009) as:

“An intervention provided by a more senior member of a profession to a more junior member of members of that same profession. The relationship is evaluative and hierarchical, extends over time and has the simultaneous purposes of enhancing the professional functioning of the more junior person(s); monitoring the quality of professional services offered to the clients that they see; and serving as a gatekeeper for those who are to enter the particular profession.”

Wilson (1999) defined clinical supervision as: 

“[A] process of guided reflective practice where practitioners share clinical experience in a structured way to discuss, reflect, evaluate and support one another providing a forum to maintain and improve standards of care.”

Clinical supervisors have different functions and roles, including teacher, coach, mentor, consultant, and counselor. These roles change depending on the situation the supervisee presents. 

Clinical supervision targets three main skills for development: intervention, conceptualization, and personalization skills. Intervention skills include clinical interventions that a supervisee needs to work with client presentations. Conceptualization skills include teaching a supervisee how to conceptualize cases as they are presented. Personalization skills examine and develop the character, intuitiveness, and ethical problem-solving skills of the therapist. 

Each clinical supervisor can have a different type of supervisory style; most supervisors utilize a combination as needed. For example, when in the role of consultant, a clinical supervisor can be open, warm, friendly, and supportive. When in the role of a counselor, they can be invested, therapeutic, committed, perceptive. When in the role of a teacher, they can be goal oriented, practical, focused, and structured. 

The functions of a clinical supervisor include:

• Monitoring the events that are happening during the supervisee’s counselor-patient relationship

• Evaluating how supervisees are presenting themselves and skills during sessions

• Advising supervisees on professional matters

• Instructing supervisees on whatever questions they have 

• Modeling ethical behavior and self-inspection

• Consulting

• Supporting when needed 

• Sharing or self-disclosing

There are similarities between counseling skills and clinical supervision skills, but the two roles are not the same. Similar skills include:

• Listening skills

• Conceptualization skills 

• Empathy

• Interpersonal relationship skills

• Confrontation and challenge skills

• Affirmation and support skills

• Exploration and deepening skills

• Openness

• Non-judgmental stance

Different Models of Supervision

There are different models of clinical supervision. It is important to not only understand what model of clinical supervision your supervisor utilizes, but also to sign an informed consent agreeing to supervision under that model.

Psychodynamic Clinical Supervision

The psychodynamic model of clinical supervision largely focuses on the supervisee rather than the client. In this model, there is a focus on relationship dynamics and how to teach conflict-resolution skills to the client. 

The supervisor focuses on both the client-supervisee dyad and the supervisee-supervisor dyad to notice parallels between the two relationships. There is also a focus on the process within the supervisee’s clinical sessions and what the supervisee may not be aware of.

Countertransference is examined in this mode. There are four types that can occur. 

Psychodynamic supervision is a pathway to unpacking and understanding the various relationship dynamics and helping the supervisee better understand themselves and manage their own reactions to clients:

• Transference feelings of the therapist brought on through interaction with a particular client

• Feelings and thoughts the therapist has that arise out of playing the role transferred onto them by the client

• Therapists feelings, thoughts, and actions used to counter the transference of the client

• Projected material of the client that the therapist has somatically or mentally taken on

Social Role Model of Clinical Supervision

In the social role model of clinical supervision, supervision is a higher-order role that contains other roles, such as teacher, counselor, or consultant. Utilizing this model, the supervisor takes on different roles depending on what is needed. 

This model includes three teaching focuses: intervention skills, conceptualization skills, and personalization skills. The supervisor decides based on what the supervisor is presenting to determine what roles to take as teacher, counselor, or consultant.  

Developmental Models of Clinical Supervision

The developmental model of clinical supervision focuses on the developmental path of clinical skill development. There is an emphasis on the training approach adapting to the level of development of the therapist. 

Leach, Stoltenberg, McNeill & Eichenfield (1997) developed the Integrated Developmental Model (IDM) for counselor development:

Psychotherapy-Based Clinical Supervision

In psychotherapy-based models of clinical supervision, aspects of the theoretical model are utilized as clinical supervision techniques and interventions. These models include:

• Person-Centered

  • The process and the relationship are the primary focus.

  • The supervisor is empathic and not directive.

• Cognitive Behavioral

  • Supervisors are systematic specific with feedback and directives.

  • Goals and objectives are specified and monitored.

  • Supervisors challenge supervisee cognitions and misperceptions.

  • There is a focus on development of appropriate behaviors.

• Systemic

  • There is a focus on the family of origin dynamics that may impact clinical skill development.

• Constructivist: Narrative and Solution-Focused

  • The supervisor takes on more of a consultant role and focuses on the supervisee strengths. Autonomy is emphasized, and the supervisor encourages the supervisee to take ownership over decision making. 

Attachment Model of Clinical Supervision

The attachment model of clinical supervision uses the same concepts related to attachment theory, such as secure base. The model utilizes the supervisee’s attachment style as a way to explore the supervisee-client relationship. 

Supervision may trigger the supervisee’s attachment processes, and the supervisor serves as a secure base in which to model behaviors that the supervisee can utilize with their clients. Attachment ruptures will happen in the supervisee-supervisor relationship and are explored as part of supervision. When ruptures are mended in clinical supervision, this can be a corrective emotional experience for the supervisee.  

Wellness Model of Clinical Supervision

The wellness model of clinical supervision focuses on continuing a wellness assessment as essential for the development of supervisees. 

Supervisees are encouraged to select domains of wellness for development that are hypothesized to have a positive impact and implement them in their lives, while supervisors should model wellness.

Learn More About Clinical Supervision + Clinical Consultation Services at Kimberly Keiser & Associates

Are you interested in being part of our new clinical group supervision for AASECT sex therapy certification and clinical consultation services?

Our founder, Kimberly Keiser, will be completing her AASECT sex therapist supervisor certification in January 2021 and is starting a sex therapy supervision group, which is open to any therapist in the U.S. 

We will also have clinical case consultation services available.

Please contact our team to learn more and apply today!