Novice supervisors' tasks and training – A descriptive study

Abstract

The debut as a clinical supervisor is still rather unknown. The aim of this study is to explore what kind of tasks novice supervisors undertake and how they are prepared for these. During 2009–2010, 350 Danish clinical psychologists have responded to the Development of Psychotherapists Common Core Questionnaire covering a wide range of items on professional development, experience and practice. In this paper, we focus on background data (experience, training and practice), specifically the tasks and training of the respondents as novice supervisors. The results show that a majority of novice supervisors were confronted with complicated tasks, e.g. group, internal and interdisciplinary supervision, but were not prepared, i.e. trained, prior to these tasks. These findings imply that more training is needed for novice supervisors. Preferably, this training should be introduced before, or at least parallel to, the first supervisor tasks, preparing the novice supervisors for the often complicated tasks they are meeting.