Supervisees’ Perspectives of Inadequate, Harmful, and Exceptional Clinical Supervision: Are We Listening?

Abstract

Supervisees’ experiences in supervision vary remarkably. To capture such variability, Ellis and colleagues offered a framework for understanding and assessing inadequate, harmful, and exceptional supervision. Although their framework was supported, it did not offer a nuanced understanding of these supervision experiences. Using consensual qualitative research–modified, this study sought to obtain a rich description of inadequate, harmful, and exceptional supervision. Participants ( N = 135) were presented with definitions and provided responses ( n = 156) to open-ended questions describing their inadequate ( n = 63), harmful ( n = 30), and/or exceptional ( n = 63) supervision experiences. Supervisees reporting harmful experiences described supervisors as neglectful and callous, whereas inadequate supervision reflected inappropriate feedback, unavailability, and unresponsiveness. Conversely, exceptional supervision involved safety, clinical paradigm shifts, and modeling specific techniques or theories. Implications for supervision research, theory, and practice are discussed.