Power differentials are all around us. The dyads of professor:student, society:member, coach:player, parent:child, or supervisor:supervisee all inherently contain some differential of power. As someone who is interested in becoming a supervisor in the future, I've been thinking a lot about power and how to make supervision a safe experience for the supervisee.
A good place to start might be discussing supervision that may not be adequate. Previous research by Ellis et al. (2014) suggested harmful or inadequate supervision is all too common. Nearly 50% of individuals in their study have been harmed in supervision at some point in their career and 36% were currently categorized as receiving harmful supervision. Furthermore, 93% of the participants in their study were identified as currently receiving inadequate supervision, whereas 96% have received inadequate supervision at some point in their careers.
What is causing harmful supervision and why is something not being done about it? I have many ideas, but here is just one.
Let's think about power for a while...and bear with me here. Say that the supervisee lives almost entirely in a phase of primary maternal preoccupation (of the supervisor) while in supervision. The roles here are reversed - the supervisee is providing mirroring, nurturance, and perfect empathic attunement of the narcissistic needs of the supervisor. The supervisee, preoccupied with the supervisor, is enabled to meet every need of the supervisor almost perfectly, like a mother is preoccupied with her baby.
The supervisor feels as though he has complete, omnipotent, control of the supervisee because she is fully responsive to his needs, due to the inevitable power-differential present in the relationship. The supervisor never becomes aware of his dependence on the supervisee because the supervisee meets his every need - he does not allow for small, incremental failures of the supervisee because he likely is not capable of dealing with anything but responsiveness from the supervisee (think of primary narcissism). This co-dependency continues until external factors (such as supervisee graduation) occur. Unfortunately, in many cases, nothing is done in the meantime because many institutions are not adequately designed to keep supervisees safe.
Even if you aren’t a psychologist or someone in the mental health profession, this may make sense to you, especially if you have been a victim of abusive power in other areas of your life: society, institutions, coaches, partners, family members, teachers, spiritual leaders, ect. Harmful relationships happen much too often when there is a power differential (or perceived power differential). Over the last several years, many groups of athletes, women, students, and employees, among others, have shared their stories, leading to others realizing that they, too, have been harmed.
On each coin, however, there are two sides. For those of us in power, whether it be our whiteness, need to assess our students, or desire to help our patients, what can we do to ensure our narcissistic needs are not impinging those we are trying to help? One of the most reassuring and comforting things a supervisor has done for me is ask. "How is this feeling, Carli? Is this okay?" I've certainly told patients that I hope they would feel comfortable telling me if something becomes 'not okay.' Not only do I not have the capacity for perfect attunement, I am also aware that I may be fulfilling some of my narcissistic needs without recognizing it. Furthermore, if something starts off okay, that does not mean someone cannot change their mind; something can start of feeling good, then turn into something painful or uncomfortable. There is no easy answer here, but continuous collaboration and discussion about what is okay and what isn't seems to be the best answer I can come up with. This collaboration is an ongoing process.
Ellis, M. V., Berger, L., Hanus, A. E., Ayala, E. E., Swords, B. A., & Siembor, M. (2014). Inadequate and Harmful Clinical Supervision: Testing a Revised Framework and Assessing Occurrence. The Counseling Psychologist, 42, 434–472.
- cg
Comments