4.A.2
Supervision models and what the evidence shows
ASPPB's competency statement 4.A.2: Supervision models and their evidence
Supervision models describe how supervisees learn and what supervisors do. Developmental models track how supervisees change with experience, the discrimination model maps the supervisor's roles and foci, psychotherapy-based models extend a therapy's own theory, and the competency-based approach, adopted in APA's guidelines, sets explicit competencies and benchmarks. The evidence is thinner for any single model than for common elements such as the supervisory alliance and observation of actual work.
Key ideas
- Integrated Developmental Model
- Stoltenberg's model follows supervisees through levels, tracking self and other awareness, motivation and autonomy. Early supervisees need structure and support; later ones, more autonomy and challenge, with the supervisor adjusting the environment to the level.
- Discrimination model
- Bernard's model crosses three supervisor roles (teacher, counselor, consultant) with three foci (intervention skills, conceptualization, personalization), so the supervisor picks the role that fits the need at hand rather than a single fixed stance.
- Competency-based supervision
- Falender and Shafranske's approach, the basis of APA's 2015 guidelines and their 2025 revision, names the knowledge, skills and attitudes to develop, sets benchmarks and applies across theoretical orientations.
- The supervisory alliance
- Bordin described the alliance as agreement on goals and tasks plus an emotional bond. Trainees who rate the alliance as weaker report withholding more from supervision, especially about the supervision itself.
- The state of the evidence
- A content analysis of 52 supervision models judged none clearly or adequately grounded in evidence, and few focused on client outcomes. Randomized evidence does show that supervision adds to the skill gains from training alone.
Worked example
A second-year doctoral student who was eager and dependent last year now argues with most suggestions, then privately doubts every session. Their supervisor wants to choose an approach and check that it is working.
- Read the pattern developmentally: swings in confidence and a pull between dependence and autonomy fit the middle of the Integrated Developmental Model, so the supervisor offers more autonomy with support rather than more instruction.
- Use the discrimination model to vary roles: act as consultant when the student plans interventions and as teacher only for skills the student has not yet learned.
- Tend the alliance by agreeing on goals and tasks explicitly, since a weak alliance makes withholding more likely.
- Because no model guarantees results, judge progress by recordings and client outcome data rather than by how supervision feels.
Use models to match the supervisee's stage and need, and verify their effect with observed work and client data.
Check yourself
Which statement best reflects research on clinical supervision models?
Sources
- Simpson-Southward, Waller and Hardy (2017), How do we know what makes for "best practice" in clinical supervision for psychological therapists? A content analysis of supervisory models and approaches, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 24(6), 1228-1245 (PMID 28421642), Abstract: 52 models analyzed; none clearly or adequately empirically based; limited focus on client outcomes
- Rakovshik, McManus, Vazquez-Montes, Muse and Ougrin (2016), Is supervision necessary? Examining the effects of internet-based CBT training with and without supervision, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 84(3), 191-199 (PMID 26795937), Abstract: the supervised group showed greater competence than the worksheet and delayed-training groups
- Gibson, Ellis and Friedlander (2019), Toward a nuanced understanding of nondisclosure in psychotherapy supervision, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 66(1), 114-121 (PMID 30070561), Abstract: alliance perceptions inversely related to supervisee nondisclosure, uniquely so for supervision-related nondisclosure
- Stoltenberg (2005), Enhancing professional competence through developmental approaches to supervision, American Psychologist, 60(8), 857-864 (PMID 16351427), Abstract: the Integrated Developmental Model as a framework for how supervisees change over time; the levels and the three structures are from Stoltenberg and McNeill (2010)
- Stoltenberg and McNeill (2010), IDM Supervision: An Integrated Developmental Model for Supervising Counselors and Therapists, Third Edition, Levels and the structures of self and other awareness, motivation and autonomy
- Bernard and Goodyear (2019), Fundamentals of Clinical Supervision, Sixth Edition, The discrimination model's roles and foci; Bordin's supervisory working alliance
- American Psychological Association (2015), Guidelines for clinical supervision in health service psychology, American Psychologist, 70(1), 33-46 (PMID 25581007), revised in 2025 into six domains, Abstract: competency-based, meta-theoretical approach
- Grus, Falender, Goodyear, Tao and Jordan (2026), The revised American Psychological Association guidelines for clinical supervision: Rationale, revisions, and implications for practice and scholarship, Psychotherapy, advance online publication (PMID 42821409), Abstract: the 2025 revision and its six domains, including supervisory relationship (Domain C)