Representations of the supervisory dialogue and the development of psychotherapists

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the ways in which therapists-in-training construct and use mental representations of their relationships with their supervisors in the service of their own professional development. A total of 115 trainees (75% of whom were psychodynamically oriented) completed The Supervisory Representation Inventory, a network of measures designed to assess the forms, functions, and phenomenological properties of internalized representations of that relationship. Results indicate that supervisees tend to evoke representations of their supervisors' spoken words, vocal qualities, and the settings in which they have met; that they evoke these representations to better formulate clinical interventions, especially those perceived as painful or difficult for patients to hear; and that these representations are especially likely to occur when patients behave in ways consistent with a supervisor's view or, when the supervisee is alone and thinking about a patient that has been discussed in supervision. Findings support the hypothesis that representations of the verbal and nonverbal aspects of the supervisory dialogue play an integral role in the acquisition of the skills and professional identity of a psychotherapist.