Supervision with Frank

by A.K.

Many agencies provide supervision to employees internally. Depending on the supervisor’s approach and the agency, there can be negative consequences for the employee.

A clinician may disagree with a supervisor’s advice, and fear contradicting or acting contrary to that supervisor’s advice. The supervisor can be under pressure from her or his own manager to focus supervision on paperwork compliance and productivity.

Also, at an agency, a supervisee may have limited access to his or her supervisor. Problems with supervision may directly affect the quality of treatment the clinician can provide to clients.

A clinician may benefit greatly by utilizing an outside supervisor who provides an approach to therapy that is client centered, relational, and collaborative, thereby empowering the clinician to empower their client.

I used Frank for supervision for about a year, as I moved from my initial social work license (LCSW), on my way to getting my independent license (LICSW).  During our sessions, Frank helped me to focus on my perspective of the client and the client’s perception of the problem.

He taught me various approaches to working with clients, including paradoxical ones, like role reversal. For example, a client of mine needed to appear in housing court to keep from losing her apartment on a legal matter.

The client was terrified of the housing court officer. We role-played the meeting.  I had her imagine herself as the housing court officer, while I played her.  She asked me the hardest questions she could imagine. Then we swapped roles. Her confidence increased, which helped her be more effective advocating for herself in housing court.

A key part of supervision is feeling comfortable to consider my own assumptions as I work to strengthen the therapeutic rapport and relationships that I build with clients. Frank always made me feel comfortable, like we were looking at things together, with curiosity rather than judgment.

For example, a client of mine did not think that his drinking was a problem, even though it was causing him to miss work. I assumed that he was drinking due to stress at work.  By asking me open questions, Frank helped me to discover that the client had not actually said that work was stressful.

I realized that I could be curious in my next meeting with the client, and use my own open ended questions to learn more.  When I did this, I discovered that my original assumption, that work was his source of stress, was incorrect.

I asked my client what he likes about drinking. He said that it helps to calm him down.  He did not see drinking or work as problems. Instead, he viewed his anger at his wife and their marital problems as the problem that he wanted to solve.

He was happy to focus on his marital problems, and I was pleased that we were working on what he wanted to work on, client centered.  If his drinking also caused problems, we would see that as we progressed.

In addition to helping me to examine my own assumptions, Frank would always ask me how I was feeling during each client session.  I was comfortable telling him my perceptions, thoughts and feelings.  We saw that they often mirrored the client’s. Here was the relational learning.

Just as anyone who has ever had effective therapy internalizes the therapist’s voice, I now have a “supervisor in my head”; I have internalized many of Frank’s questions and ask them of myself.

Through my now “internal” supervision, the quality of my work continues to improve as I use the many approaches, questions, and techniques that I learned.  I’m sorry to say that, in all the agency settings that I have worked, I have never felt the same open communication.

I hope that, in the future, I will be able to generate that kind of communication with those that I supervise, as I move through my own social work career.

A.K. 2014