Psychotherapy supervision: Ethical considerations and resources

Competent supervision of psychotherapy requires that the supervisor possess a capacity to: (a) identify the ethical issues that emerge in the course of conducting supervision; (b) recognise the presence of one or more ethical conflicts in a given supervision situation; and (c) summon the appropriate principles and standards that inform competent, ethically responsible supervision. The supervisor must also have a capability to proceed through the steps of an ethical decision-making process to identify a course of action that will honor maximally universal ethical principles. The supervisor’s ability to perform the aforementioned tasks rests upon knowledge of what effective psychotherapy supervision is, and how supervision differs from consultation and psychotherapy. It also entails the ability to access the resources that have been developed and collected internationally over the past decade that usefully inform the supervisor’s efforts to grapple with ethical dilemmas. Three vignettes illustrate how the supervisor can benefit from employing these resources.