Teaching Residents to Use Supervision Effectively

Psychotherapy supervision is one of the most important avenues through which residents learn psychotherapy. However, instruction on how to effectively use supervision is minimal. Described here is a one-session introduction to supervision designed to help students prepare for their supervision experiences. A questionnaire revealed that residents had no previous education regarding supervision. Most helpful for trainees were the topics of characteristics of good supervisors, addressing problems in supervision, and the supervision contract/agreement. The session helped trainees feel more comfortable and more open in supervision, and prompted them to try different supervision modalities. It is recommended that this program be tried in other residency programs.