Supervision in the Education and Training of Sport Psychology Service Providers

Abstract

Supervision plays a central role in the training of sport psychologists, but little discussion of what constitutes adequate supervision of trainees and practitioners is available in the applied sport psychology literature. Broader issues of supervision, such as the training of students to become supervisors, metasupervision, and career-long collegial supervision are rarely discussed. This paper will present models of general supervision processes from training the neophyte to collegial supervision, derived primarily from clinical and counseling psychology. Included are supervising the delivery of performance-enhancement services, identifying trainee and client needs, helping the student understand transference and countertransference phenomena, and suggestions for examining the relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee. Suggestions for improving supervision include course work and/or practica in supervision processes for applied sport psychology graduate programs along with continuing education workshops at sport psychology conferences.