Novice supervisee's experiences of what is good and bad psychotherapy supervision

This paper presents a qualitative study of novice supervisee’s experiences of good and bad supervisory
experiences and on how this change as the supervisees gain more experience. Novice psychotherapists
rate supervision as the most important element in their acquisition of professional skills in therapeutic
activity. In spite of this, it has been documented that many supervisees are discontent with the
supervision they receive. Still relatively little research has been conducted that examines the quality of
supervision and the learning involved seen from the perspective of the supervisees. This study was
conducted as a series of semi structured qualitative research interviews with 7 student therapist 2 month
after their first clinical experience in a university clinic setting. The subjects were re-interviewed when
they had almost a year of clinical experience and supervision. The interviews were thematically focusing
on the experience of specific good and bad supervisory experiences. Also included were the importance
of peers in the supervision group and the organisational setting of the supervision. After analysing each
individuals experience all individual experiences were examined until patterns across the interviews
could be identified. The main findings will be presented on what is considered good and bad supervision
as seen from the perspective of the supervisees. It also describes the changes of preference as a
function of the supervisee’s level of experience.