Lens on International Clinical Supervision: Lessons Learned from a Cross-National Comparison of Supervision

Abstract

Clinical supervision is an essential mechanism for training psychologists internationally. But although it is performed globally, scholarship has primarily addressed it through the lens of Western supervision practices. The authors of this manuscript aspired to an alternative lens, that of enlightened globalization (Kim and Park in Korea J 44(2):30–51, 2007), to compare supervision practices in the U.S. and six countries that have been less studied—China, Guatemala, Mexico, South Korea, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Although the Guidelines for Supervision of Health Service Psychologists (American Psychological Association [APA] in http://www.apa.org/about/policy/guidelines-supervision.pdf , 2014, Am Psychol 70(1):33–46, 2015) provided the framework for examining cross-national practices, they were not imposed as standards for all but rather as a springboard for inquiry. The final comparisons addressed areas of regulation and supervisor competence, ethical and legal factors, supervisory multicultural factors, the supervisory relationship, supervisees with problems of professional competence, and assessment, evaluation, and feedback. Cultural differences identified include forms of communication (direct, implicit, explicit), the supervision hierarchy, manifestations of respect, power, and the cultural relevance of regulation, gatekeeping, evaluation, and feedback. The article concludes by using the results of these analyses to propose a definition of clinical supervision that could be appropriate for all seven countries and presumably most other countries as well.