Psychotherapy Supervision Since 1909: Some Friendly Observations About its First Century

Abstract

Now a century old, psychotherapy supervision occupies a place of increasing prominence across all mental health disciplines and appears to generally be regarded as a (if not the) sine qua non for the teaching and learning of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy supervision has emerged as our “signature pedagogy.” In this paper, I take a look back at supervision’s last century and consider some (but by no means all) of the salient issues and themes that have defined its science and practice. The reviewed supervision issues and themes include the following: (1) the beginnings and evolution of supervision and supervision theory; (2) our evolving perspective about the supervision matrix; (3) methodological pluralism and diversity; (4) “good” and “bad” supervisor behaviors and the working alliance; (5) measurement; (6) effectiveness; (7) diversity; and (8) education. I use this “look back” to (1) give voice to where we have been and where we are now in psychotherapy supervision and (2) shine a light on some of what seems to lie ahead for supervision’s second century.