The Supervisory Alliance as Quintessential Integrative Variable

Abstract

The concept of alliance in psychotherapy supervision is now a half century old. But over the course of its first 50 years, how has the supervisory alliance come to generally be viewed by supervision scholars and practitioners? and What is its specific place now within different visions of supervision? In this paper, I would like to consider those two questions by: (a) describing the two enduring perspectives on the supervisory alliance that have dominated and continue to dominate the supervisory scene; and (b) examining the ways in which the alliance appears to currently be conceptualized and implemented across several distinct views of supervision. Each view of supervision is also presented as containing and actuating its own message and meaning about the role of alliance in supervision, and those messages and meanings are accordingly identified. The supervisory alliance appears to now be widely regarded as being a transtheoretical common factor that binds by means of: (a) bond/rapport; (b) supervision goals; and (c) supervision tasks. Much like the therapeutic alliance in psychotherapy, the supervisory alliance has increasingly come to be seen as the very heart and soul of supervision itself and may indeed be the quintessential integrative variable in psychotherapy supervision.