The Common Process of Supervision Process: The Supervision Session Pyramid as a Teaching Tool in the Beginning Supervision Seminar

Abstract

We take up three fundamental considerations: (a) regardless of supervisory perspective adopted, there is a common process to supervision session process; (b) supervision is a cyclical affair across sessions and, oftentimes, even within sessions; and (c) beginning supervisor trainees, whatever the supervisory perspective to which they will eventually subscribe, can benefit from having a simple conceptual way of thinking about the commonalities of supervision session structure. Although the supervision process (e.g., supervision stages) is a widely considered topic, supervision session process—the workings of each individual session—is comparatively a far less considered facet of the supervisor-supervisee interaction. But beginning supervisor trainees often struggle mightily with that very issue: They lack any sort of conceptual perspective on how to best proceed in the moment to moment unfolding of the supervision hour and can understandably feel anxious and awed as a result. We propose a simple, straightforward way of thinking about supervision session flow—the Supervision Session Pyramid—as a teaching tool for use in supervisor education. Reflecting an integrated amalgam of views, the SSP provides beginning supervisor trainees with an easily-accessible visual that (a) captures a common structure of session action that is trans-theoretically applicable and (b) accentuates the ever cycling and recycling nature of the supervisory experience. Thus, we recommend that the SSP be used as a discussion stimulus in the beginning supervision seminar, or even in the supervision of supervisor trainees, as a way to organize and galvanize thinking about supervision session process.