Layered cultural processes: The relationship between multicultural orientation and satisfaction with supervision.

Abstract

Supervision has been called the "signature pedagogy" of psychotherapy, and recent literature has emphasized the importance of multicultural processes in supervision. Despite the recent advances in the area of multicultural orientation, much of the existing work on the application of multicultural orientation to clinical supervision, however, has been conceptual rather than empirical. In the present study, we extended the multicultural orientation framework (MCO) to the context of supervision. In a sample of therapist trainees (N = 123), supervisor cultural humility and cultural (missed) opportunities were significantly associated with supervisees' satisfaction with supervision, but only as it pertained to the supervisee's cultural context; supervisor cultural humility and opportunities associated with supervisees' clients' cultural contexts were not significantly related to supervisees' satisfaction. Thus, supervisors' cultural humility attending to cultural opportunities within the supervisory relationship was positively related to supervisees' satisfaction with supervision. Implications and recommendations for research and education/training will be discussed.

Cultural Humility, Cultural Comfort, and Supervision Processes and Outcomes for BIPOC Supervisees

“…Example items from the supervisee-focused CHS-S following the prompt ("Regarding the core aspect(s) of my cultural background, my supervisor…") included "Assumes they already know a lot," and "Is open minded." Previous internal consistency for the CHS-S (supervisee-focused) was .92 and it has been found to be related to missed cultural opportunities and supervisory satisfaction (Wilcox et al, 2022), however, with a predominantly White sample. See (Mori et al, 2009).…”

“…Supervision Cultural Humility Scales. The Supervision Cultural Humility Scales (CHS-S; Wilcox et al, 2022) is a set of two 12-item self-report measures on which supervisees, first, rated their supervisors' cultural humility as it pertains to the supervisees' identities and the supervision process (supervisee-focused CHS-S) and, second, rated their supervisor's cultural humility as it pertains to the supervisees' clients' identities and client-focused supervision content (clientfocused CHS-S). Items are rated on a 5-point, Likert-type scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree), with a potential scale range of 12 to 60; higher scores indicate greater supervisee-perceived supervisor cultural humility.…”

“…However, little empirical evidence exists regarding how cultural factors relate to the supervisory working alliance. Wilcox et al (2022) were among the first to empirically apply the MCO framework to clinical supervision. They examined the impact of supervisors' cultural humility and cultural (missed) opportunities on supervisees' satisfaction with supervision.…”

Psychotherapy training and supervision with undergraduate and graduate students.

“…Supervisors' errors in technique (minimal input in supervision, gender discrimination, nonadherence to ethical guidelines) were linked with supervisee discouragement, negative emotions, reduced involvement and satisfaction, and weaker supervisory alliances (Bang & Goodyear, 2014;Bertsch et al, 2014;Ladany, Lehrman-Waterman, et al, 1999). Supervisors' cultural humility in attending to cultural opportunities within the supervision relationship was positively related to supervisees' satisfaction with supervision (Wilcox et al, 2022). Finally, supervisors' demographic characteristics (faculty status, time since graduation, level of experience, professional specialization, type of degree) had minimal effect on outcome, other than supervisors who had graduated more recently having mildly better client outcomes as compared with more experienced supervisors.…”

Extending multicultural orientation to the group supervision of psychotherapy: Practical applications.

“…MCO also appears to matter for psychotherapy supervision (e.g., sensitizing supervisees to the salience of culture in their therapy relationships; Watkins et al, 2019), and a small but burgeoning base of conceptual/practical and empirical work supports that assertion (e.g., Wilcox et al, 2022; Zhang et al, 2022; Zhao & Stone-Sabali, 2021). However, all such work—a product of the last 3 years alone—has focused primarily on individual supervision.…”