An experienced APS member shares advice for psychologists stepping into a Board-approved supervisor role for the first time, including what you need to know to prepare for this role and how to set up a successful session.
Stepping into the role of a Board-approved supervisor is often viewed as a daunting professional milestone, as it marks a transition from 'doing' the work to 'overseeing' it.
However, this shift offers a unique reciprocal advantage: by guiding another, you inevitably sharpen your own professional knowledge.
Engaging in supervisory practice forces deeper navigation of the complexities within psychological relationships, often illuminating personal blind spots and refining your own reflexive capacity in ways that client-facing work by itself cannot.
Beyond personal mastery, there is the profound impact of stewardship. Becoming a supervisor is one of the most direct ways to contribute to the sustainability and growth of the psychology profession.
Katrina Streatfeild FAPS, a counselling and clinical psychologist, offers advice for psychologists seeking to become a Board-approved supervisor or those who are taking their first steps into the role, including details about the process involved, how to set the supervisory relationship up for success and getting the most out of your initial sessions with your supervisee.
The power of being a supervisor lies in helping a supervisee feel safe and confident as a therapist; this directly impacts a supervisee's capacity to help the client feel safe in their work.
Process to follow to become a Board-approved supervisor
Supervision is an interactive process between a supervisee and a supervisor. It provides the supervisee with a professionally stimulating and supportive opportunity for growth.
It's a special type of professional relationship in which supportive direction, facilitative activities and instructive critique are given by supervisors to help supervisees achieve their professional goals.
Before you can become a Board-approved supervisor, you must ensure your own professional foundation is compliant with the Psychology Board of Australia (PsyBA) and other legal and regulatory requirements.
Additionally, the PsyBA requires that to become a Board-approved supervisor, you need to have:
- held general registration as a psychologist for at least three years, and
- successfully completed full training with a Board-approved provider.
"It is essential to complete an accredited course – which the APS offers – and then formally apply to Ahpra to obtain your Board-approved supervisor status."
Psychologists approved by the Board to provide supervision to psychologists and provisional psychologists can choose to appear in a searchable database via the 'Find a Supervisor' on Aphra's website.
Explore APS's Supervision Training Hub.
How to set up a supervisory relationship
At the start of a supervision relationship, the supervisor should allow time to discuss practical elements, including the roles and responsibilities of the supervisee and supervisor, as well as logistical detail, such as time, place, frequency of sessions and record keeping.
Additionally, the option for telehealth supervision removes geographical limitations, and provides psychologists with greater access to supervisors across different areas of psychological practice.
Before deciding to proceed with supervision, it can be useful to conduct an initial chemistry check to ensure that both supervisor and supervisee are aligned.
During this meeting, supervisors can encourage an open discussion before formal arrangement begins, to ensure their therapeutic and relational style resonates with the supervisee and that their specific approach and professional background aligns with the supervisee's learning needs.
It is essential to establish ground rules about how you'll operate together and how often you might meet. This should be captured through a supervision agreement, which is developed by both supervisor and supervisee, and which should be revisited throughout the supervisory relationship.
The duration and frequency of supervision sessions vary depending on the supervisee’s evolving learning needs, career stage and professional pathway.
While fully registered psychologists can engage in peer consultation at a frequency and duration that suits them (keeping in mind that PsyBA requires that fully registered psychologists receive at least 10 hours of peer consultation per year), provisional psychologists and those in a registrar program – who require Board-approved supervision – have their own specific requirements.
Psychology Board of Australia’s Code of Conduct also requires fully registered psychologists to see out seek supervision for a number of specific contexts.
Provisional psychologists in the 5+1 program: The Board requires 80 total hours of supervision.
A minimum of 50 hours of total supervision must be individual supervision with the principal supervisor. Frequency of supervision is determined by the supervisor.
For provisional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander psychologists, culturally informed supervision may be counted towards their 80 hours of total supervision.
Those in the registrar program (area of practice endorsements) are required to undertake specific supervision hours based on their qualification level (see graph below, or view website for details).
For Board-approved supervisors to be the primary supervisor of a registrar, the supervisor needs to have been endorsed in that area of practice for at least two years.
Ahead of the first supervision session, Streatfeild says it’s important to consider how to set the supervisory relationship up for success, giving consideration to logistics such as when/how meetings will occur and discussing some of the goals of sessions together.
"Supervision should be set up in a collaborative, structured way between the supervisor and supervisee, so both parties are clear about what it's going to look like and what they're working towards."
Goals can range from enhancing technical skills, such as learning a new therapeutic approach or assessment instrument, to reflexive practice, which supports examination of the self; questioning and acknowledging attitudes, experiences, ways of thinking values and motivation, prejudices and actions, to inform how psychologists understand their impact on and interactions with others.
Under competency 3.4 of the PsyBA Professional Competencies, psychologists are expected to engage in both reflection and reflexivity on the impact of their own culture, values, beliefs and biases, and act upon such reflection and ensure practice is responsive and adaptive to client, context and culture.
Reflexivity involves pursuing self-awareness of one's own personal limitations, deficits, biases and how these might intentionally or unintentionally affect others and a psychologist’s practice.
For example, reflexive goals might be:
Unpacking privilege: A supervisee might like to explore how their identity as a university-educated professional might be causing them to inadvertently use clinical jargon that alienates clients from different backgrounds. A supervisee might like to explore how their identity as a university-educated professional might be causing them to inadvertently use clinical jargon that alienates clients from different backgrounds.
A supervisee might like to explore how their identity as a university-educated professional might be causing them to inadvertently use clinical jargon that alienates clients from different backgrounds.
Working through cultural differences: A supervisee might be struggling to build rapport with a client from a collectivist culture. They want to reflect on how their Western, individualistic training is shaping their treatment goals and whether they might be imposing my definition of 'autonomy' onto their client.
Reflective questions, however, might be:
- How did you show up in last week’s sessions?
- What do you think the client experience was like?
Whereas technical goals might be:
Mastering new tools: This might involve learning a specific psychometric assessment, such as the WAIS-5 or MMPI-3, that the supervisee hasn't utilised before.
Methodological precision: Goals can centre on mastering a specific modality, such as moving from general CBT to EMDR or schema therapy, ensuring the supervisee understands the evidence base required for application of a different approach.
Risk frameworks: This could encompass developing a structured approach to complex risk management or navigating specific legal reporting requirements.
A key goal of the supervision process is to "consolidate and expand the supervisee’s scope of competency" to allow for growth without compromising ethical practice, says Streatfeild.
Importantly, supervision goals should not be static, she adds. The supervisor and supervisee should review them regularly to remain clear about what they are working towards.
How to get the most of your session
It's important to create a strong supervisory alliance, she adds.
"The supervisee needs to feel that the space is safe enough for them to lean into their... sometimes challenging reflections."
Some ways to enable this supervisory alliance could include:
- Normalising vulnerability: A supervisor can build trust by directly stating that the supervision space is designed for "imperfection" and that admitting to mistakes or "not knowing" will be met with helpful feedback rather than criticism.
- Scaffolding moments of success: For a supervisee extending their scope of competency into a new area – for example, undertaking complex diagnoses – the supervisor can build trust by co-designing a "scaffolded" approach.
Instead of a sudden leap into autonomous practice, they might agree on a phased goal. For example, the supervisee might first observe a recording, then co-facilitate a specific assessment segment and finally lead the session with a dedicated debrief immediately following.
This structured support provides the supervisee with appropriate challenge, paired with the safety net of containment, which reinforces the psychological safety required for high-level learning, she says.
- Model intellectual humility: By being "comfortable with not knowing" and openly searching for answers alongside the supervisee, the supervisor models a lifelong learning mindset that reduces the supervisee's pressure to appear 'perfect'.
Or, when an ethical dilemma emerges, the supervisor can enhance trust by thinking out loud, rather than simply providing the answer.
By walking the supervisee through their own internal process – as well as referencing the PsyBA Code of conduct, considering applicable legislation and weighing the client's best interests – the supervisor demystifies the path to an ethically sound decision.
Transparency helps to reduce the potential "expert/novice" power imbalance and fosters a collaborative alliance where the supervisee feels like a partner in professional inquiry.
- Practice a structured check-in moment: At the conclusion of every third or fourth session, time could be dedicated to the supervisor-supervisee relationship itself.
This might involve the supervisor asking questions such as, "Is there anything in my feedback style today that felt more critical than constructive?" or "Am I hitting the right balance between technical skill-building and providing a reflective space?"
By inviting this feedback, the supervisor models reflective practice, proving that the alliance is an adjustable contract.
Finally, a perennial challenge in the supervision relationship is the potential for it to morph into a personal therapy session. Streatfeild is firm in maintaining professional guardrails.
"Supervision is not therapy," she says.
"It's important that supervisees are both reflective and reflexive about any personal factors that could be impacting their work.”
If personal issues become an interference, Streatfeild suggests the supervisor has an important role in supporting the supervisee's noticing and reflexivity, including any potential role for personal therapy.
The PsyBA’s supervisor guidelines provide the necessary scaffolding to help maintain these boundaries. Additionally, all supervisors, be they early career or experienced, should also seek their own supervision when required.
Additionally, the APS has created Professional practice guidelines on supervision, designed in line with the new PsyBA Code of conduct. Supervisors should address key elements of the guidelines in the initial supervision agreement, and ensure they regularly review the guidelines.
Both sets of guidelines act as a vital roadmap and empower supervisors to transform their psychological experience into a supportive supervisory practice – one that prioritises both the professional growth of the supervisee and the safety of the public they both serve.