Throughout most of my career as a public sector psychologist, working in a variety of settings, I was blessed with good supervision. The few times I either didn’t have a clinical supervisor (as in Jamaica) or didn’t get adequate supervision, I felt like I was walking a tightrope without a net. A good supervisor will listen to you as carefully as you listen to your clients, and give you feedback on how you’re doing. Positive feedback validates your work and increases your confidence that you’re on the right track, and negative feedback teaches you humility and provides valuable instruction.
As in therapy, a good supervisor asks the right questions. (When the person you’re talking to asks spot-on follow-up questions, you know she’s listening and understands you, whether it’s a friend, therapist, or supervisor.) As your supervisor gets to know you, he will validate your competencies and strengths, be part of your continuing education as a clinician, and insure that you know the appropriate scope of your practice. He will offer constructive criticism when necessary, and may suggest resources for your professional development. He will alert you to possible ethical issues.
At the beginning of individual supervision, the therapist being supervised might have to staff each case in some detail, until the supervisor gets to know her strengths and limitations. Later in supervision, the therapist might provide brief updates on the progress in cases already staffed and spend more time on new, or challenging, cases. In group supervision, participating clinicians may be asked to prepare case presentations, usually on their most challenging cases.
The other group setting where clinicians might be asked to present cases is in treatment team, which is a kind of group supervision. In community mental health centers (CMHCs) and other treatment facilities, each new case has to be staffed, and the treatment plan has to be approved by a multidisciplinary treatment team. Not only do treatment teams insure that all treatment is reviewed by colleagues on an ongoing basis, they also serve a professional development function. The ideal treatment team consists of one-or-more psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses (or nurse practitioners), psychologists, social workers, counselors, and possibly specialists such as art therapists or activity therapists. Each discipline represented on a treatment team brings a different area of expertise to the table. In the best treatment teams a kind of cross-pollination of ideas occurs, as treatment plans are generated and reviewed.
I’ve been a treatment team member at CMHCs, juvenile and adult prisons, and hospitals. The smallest, at a rural satellite office of a CMHC, consisted of only a psychiatrist, a psychiatric nurse (my supervisor), and me. The largest consisted of something like fifteen members, with people from all or most of the helping professions listed above. Some treatment teams might give assignments to its members, such as asking a psychologist to do some psychological testing for a client on someone else’s caseload. In facilities run on the medical model, treatment teams are headed by psychiatrists. In a well-run treatment team, everybody has a voice.
I’ve not only appreciated, but enjoyed most of my treatment team experiences. Working with colleagues from a variety of disciplines has broadened my knowledge and increased my appreciation of the unique contributions offered by each profession. The highest goal of both clinical supervision and treatment team staffing is to insure that clients receive effective treatment, tailored to their unique needs. I have fond memories of interactions I’ve had with a number of my clinical supervisors over the years and – full disclosure – I fell in love with one of them. We’ve been married for almost thirty years.
Maria, a psychiatric nurse, was my third clinical supervisor, and I admired her before I fell in love with her. I had the silly notion – grounded in my own insecurities as a young therapist – that group therapy wasn’t effective with chronically mentally ill clients. She set me straight, telling me that I’d be leading a weekly group with some of my most challenging clients, and offering to co-lead the group with me until I felt competent to lead it on my own. She was my first role model for doing group therapy.
We felt awkward at first when we started dating, but Maria did the right thing and talked to her supervisor about it. He reassured her: These things happen. You know what you’re doing.
The rest is history.
jeffkooblog 