A little introduction.... One of the tasks of the SCV-CAMFT Editorial Committee, of which I am a member, is to brainstorm ways the newsletter can be of more benefit to our membership. Recently, we identified a NEED we believe we can better address... facilitating a culture and community of connection (sound familiar?) amongst our members who provide supervision, and for those members seeking supervision. To this end, we will be collecting, coordinating, and disseminating this type of information. Stay tuned for further developments....

Additionally, we believe that publishing articles addressing the topic of supervision will likely further this goal. The following article is part one of the first article in such a series. We welcome your submissions. ~ Bonnie Faber

I have been supervising for almost 10 years now...having begun as soon as I was eligible -two years post licensure. Over these years, I have provided individual and group supervision for several community agencies, third party supervision (paid by interns who needed supervision for work provided to an agency), and supervision to intern employees in my private practice.

Additionally, I frequently provide consultation to more newly licensed therapists. I am often asked ?why I supervise, what I get out of it, and similar questions. I would bet that not one therapist who supervises gives the answer: ?for the money – at least not during the past decade! Personally, I have not encountered another supervisor who supervises because s/he can make more money. I don’t believe this is just because it may be the ?politically correct thing to say. Whether it is agency supervision as an employee or contractor, third party supervision, or private practice supervision, financial reimbursement for our investment of time and energy is fairly low.

So, if not for the money, for what then? I will do my best to answer that question. And, in addition, I will be including some brief interview responses from other supervisors I know. My story.... I was extremely blessed to have some excellent supervisors on my path to licensure. Topping the list is Carmen Frank, MFT, in private practice in Willow Glen. I met Carmen when I was doing an intensive internship at CHD (Center for Healthy Development). She was first my group supervisor, and later became my individual supervisor. When she left CHD, she invited me to become an intern/ employee in her private practice. I consider Carmen to be my most influential mentor, and, now, a good friend, as well. My experience of being supervised by Carmen was truly life-changing. She provided me with such a terrific model to emulate. Always professional, yet warm and open, her intuitive wisdom in working with clients of all ages is something I continue to envy. She made it safe for me to have my own thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs, and fostered my ability to trust them. To me, in a nutshell, this is what supervision is all about. I feel most successful, as a supervisor, when I witness an intern develop into a more confident, less anxious therapist, with a style uniquely their own. This is big time reimbursement for me! (It’s easy to make associations to parenting, and I think these associations are just as valid as comparisons made to the pride we therapists often feel when we witness our clients blossom.) I have been fortunate to have a number of these experiences, one of which I will share below.

I felt compelled to interview Carmen regarding what motivated her to supervise, and this was her, as always, very honest response: ?It has been an interesting challenge to remember what it was about supervising that I was first attracted to at the time. I think that a big part of it, to be honest, was to develop a sense of myself as having something to teach or give. Like all of us, going through the learning of this great Art, it was not so easy on my ego. I was on the young side in the Santa Clara M.A. program, being just 23 when I started. Then, going through all of those internships, I often felt small...in the face of this mysterious therapy thing. When I was first asked to be a supervisor at Alum Rock Counseling Center, I was 31. I felt like such a big shot, and that was such a good feeling! I wish I could say it was a more altruistic motive, but, really, other than you, I found supervising a stress -handling projections of Good or Bad Mother from interns who I was surrounded by at the agencies I supervised for. I really did cherish being your supervisor and how that has led to a long-time friendship, being important to you, sharing intimate moments, seeing you bloom and come into your own – and knowing that some of that was helped by my care and love of you! That, at this point, is the thing that moves me the most when I reflect on the experience.

Now, fast forward about 10 years from the time I was an intern in Carmen’s practice, to when I hired my first private practice intern, Laura Raybould Wolfe, LMFT, who is now practicing in San Jose. My experience of supervising Laura was very much like Carmen’s description of supervising me. I now had the opportunity to be on the other side of the supervisory relationship-equation...and to ?pay it forward? if you will – an opportunity to ?give back? to the field that has enriched my life so very much. Laura was an absolute delight to supervise. She approached me as a possible supervisor, and, in addition to being determined, she was open and vulnerable with me, from the start. I could see how much ?work? she already had done to prepare for her future as a therapist, and it was a pleasure to get to know this very grounded, sensitive, and compassionate young woman. As time passed, and we thought and worked together on cases, I felt honored to witness her develop into the very gifted therapist she has become. Our relationship has developed into a friendship...one I know I will always treasure...just as much as I treasure my relationship with Carmen. How wonderfully fortunate I have been to share such intimate, impactful experiences with both a mentor and a mentee, both of whom I now call friends.

Another supervisor, and friend of mine, Terrance McLarnan, LMFT, in private practice in Santa Clara, and Executive Director of CHD for the past seven years, says this about why he continues to supervise: ?Since I started to provide clinical supervision in 1994, it has become an integral part of my professional identity and clinical development. I have been very fortunate to have my own wonderful supervisors, who have helped me develop my capacity to think analytically, for which I am grateful. For me, providing supervision is not unlike the process of providing a treatment. It requires a great degree of trust to develop an atmosphere where interns can express their confusion and other vulnerabilities (which I consider a significant competency), as they develop their own unique clinical identities. The aspect of providing supervision that I value most is that my own capacity to think is expanded. While I am not in the room with the patient, my faculty to imagine the patient and to use my counter-transference is exercised, and my ability to put vague feelings into words grows. Finally, as the director of The Center for Healthy Development, I have been in the unique position to help train the next wave of therapists. One life time is not really very long; there is a lot of suffering in our community, and I have a commitment to be part of the solution.

And, lastly, I asked my current mentor, Hugh Grubb, PsyD, LMFT, a well-known psychoanalyst, who’s been in long-time private practice in Los Gatos, to share what motivates him to provide supervision and consultation. Dr. Grubb says: ?I hope to provide support for the intense personal demands of doing our work, as well as a confirmation of the relevance of the innate, heartfelt responses we each have to clinical situations. I hope to be strengthening the professional community, supporting a particular kind of emotional presence: honest and resilient, yet also deeply curious and imaginative. I enjoy the work very much. For me it is an experience of mutual discovery, an opportunity for exploring what this profession calls for in each of us. We are colleagues on a fascinating journey. Often, I feel deep gratitude for the companionship. TO BE CONTINUED...... Part II (?... And What Am I Getting Myself Into?) will run in the March/April 2012 newsletter.

Author:  Bonnie Faber