Liz Beddoe, “Harmful Supervision: A Commentary”

This article explores harmful clinical supervision in mental health professions. Harmful supervision is, by definition, inadequate supervision. Minimally adequate supervision may consist of the following elements: the supervisor provides a minimum of one hour of face-to-face individual supervision per week, has the appropriate knowledge and skills for clinical supervision, promotes and is invested in supervisee welfare, personal growth, and development, provides feedback, is aware of power differentials between supervisee and supervisor, etc. These minimum requirements are frequently not achieved, leading to harmful professional behavior and interpersonal microaggressions which leave supervisees distressed and manifesting physical symptoms including sleep disturbance and emotional symptoms.

This article suggests that supervisees should have the right to a supervision contract setting minimum expectations for supervision frequency and duration, focus, mechanisms for feedback, boundaries, confidentiality, etc.

Liz Beddoe, “Harmful Supervision: A Commentary” (2017) 36:1 Clinical Supervisor 88.