PSYCHOTHERAPY-BASED
APPROACHES TO SUPERVISION
JUDITH S. BECK, JOAN E. SARNAT, AND VERONICA BARENSTEIN
For the novice clinician, the task of learning how to conduct psycho-
therapy is both personally and professionally challenging. Trainees, who may
be quite competent at teasing out psychological complexity in the classroom or
in case conference, may find themselves adrift in the therapy room. Seemingly
straightforward clinical interventions are found to be less so in actual practice,
and interpersonal skills, which may have served trainees well in their personal
lives, may be strained in their attempts to develop an effective therapeutic rela-
tionship. By its very nature, psychotherapy is a complex interpersonal process
that requires the clinician to incorporate theory and evidence-based practices
in a systematic, yet flexible, manner to enhance client collaboration and to pro-
mote understanding and cognitive and behavior change. The training process
is further complicated by the multiple, and often competing, approaches that
may be taken in treatment.
Psychotherapy-based supervision orders the learning process by providing
a coherent approach to therapy in which knowledge, theory, and technique
derived from a specific orientation inform the conduct of treatment and provide
a clear focus for supervision. Further, techniques used in therapy may be tailored
and used as learning strategies in supervision, for instance, attending to dreams
in psychodynamic supervision or assigning homework in cognitive therapy
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/11792-004
Casebook for Clinical Supervision: A Competency-Based Approach, edited by C. A.
Falender and E. P. Shafranske
Copyright © 2008 American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.
Copyright American Psychological Association. Not for further distribution.