CBT Supervision: From Reflexivity to Specialization

Abstract

AbstractCognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) supervision has traditionally been presented as an extension of the therapy, a reflexive strategy that includes a commendable commitment to a principled approach. However, a critical review suggests that this strategy has not been implemented with fidelity. Furthermore, this strategy overlooks potentially valuable ideas from the wider field of clinical supervision, runs counter to CBT's empirical roots, and under-values supervision as a discrete professional specialization. For these reasons, it is argued that new developments should be grafted onto the current approach. In future, this augmented version of CBT supervision should be subjected to the same kinds of research and development (R&D) activity as CBT. Initially, this could include developing a manual to specify and operationalize this innovative approach, evaluation of manual-based training, and N = 1 research to assess its effectiveness. Examples of preliminary work are provided, and future R&D directions identified.