POINT Dear Supervisee,
Thank you for choosing me to join you in your journey toward becoming a credentialed play therapist. Here are some things I need from you to make this a productive, supportive, and successful supervisory experience.
Be authentic and genuine. I need you to present your true self and give an accurate depiction of what is happening with you and your clients. I don’t expect you to be perfect, but I need you to be honest.
Be on time and be fully present for supervision as well as for your client sessions.
Practice self-care. You need to have good strategies in place for taking care of yourself and being healthy in order to be truly available for your clients.
Put your trust in me and trust yourself. I will do my best to provide a safe, supportive environment where you can be vulnerable without judgement.
Admit mistakes, and don’t hide feelings of uncertainty. None of us are infallible, and mistakes are inevitable. In fact, sometimes situations that didn’t go the way we had planned can turn into our biggest learning experiences.
Be flexible and open to feedback. Any feedback I offer is intended to be constructive with the goal of helping you increase awareness and grow as a play therapist.
Ask questions! It’s okay to say you don’t know something, and this is a safe place to seek input.
THE MIDDLE GROUND
Seek foundational and ongoing play therapy training. In order for you to be an effective play therapist, it is important for you to have a solid knowledge base in play therapy theory and child development.
Follow the law and adhere to professional ethics codes. By supervising you, I am putting my license on the line for you and I need to trust that you are following the rules. If you are faced with an ethical dilemma, let me know right away so that we can talk through it. If you are putting anything in writing for a client (including electronic communication like anything in writing if I have not seen it. We will go over issues like crisis meet, and I will make sure that I have provided you with clear guidelines, policies, and procedures for these situations.
If something isn’t working for you in supervision or if you are feeling uncomfortable, please tell me so that we can work through it together.
As your supervisor, my role is to provide support and guidance as well as to challenge you in a way that helps you learn and grow as a play therapist. I will not give you all the answers or present you with a cookie-cutter way of doing therapy. Instead, I will help you generate with your own answers and insights. This is a collaborative, reciprocal process that requires a commitment from both of us to be honest, present, trusting, and invested in the supervisory relationship. I look forward to working with you!
Thank you to the following clinicians who have contributed to this piece: John Burr, LCSW, RPT-S; Nicole Chavez, PsyD; Krystiane Cooper, LCSW, RPT-S; Sharlene Christensen, LCMHC, RPT-S; Parie Faridnia, PsyD, RPT-S; and Violet Mesrkhani, PhD.
Creating A Sounding Board that Resonates Beyond the Basics CONSTANCE B. RATCLIFF, PHD, LMFT, LPC/MHSP-S, RPT-S
Garry Landreth (2012) seated play therapy within a dynamic and interpersonal relationship perimeter wherein the therapist carefully selects play materials that facilitate client safety and promote self- expression and exploration of feelings, thoughts, experiences, and behaviors through play (p. 2). The supervisory relationship is multi- faceted and includes the supervisor, the supervisee, and the clients under the supervisee’s care. The roles and responsibilities of this tiered professional relationship naturally change over time as the supervisee gains more experience and their needs change (Thomas, 2015).
The Association for Play Therapy’s (APT, 2019) Best Practices outlined the highest quality professional standards for play therapy supervisors, noting their roles as monitors, gatekeepers, and protectors of the
18 | PLAYTHERAPY December 2019 |
www.a4pt.org
profession and supervisees’ client welfare while fostering supervisee skill development (APT, 2019; Thomas, 2015). Play therapy supervisors receive extensive training in child-centered play therapy and advanced training in all theoretical play therapy orientations from which they supervise (APT, 2019; Donald, Culbreth, & Carter, 2015). Play therapy supervisors are charged with providing “instruction based upon child- centered play therapy principles, which primarily focuses on the impact of a therapeutic relationship that is facilitated by a warm, caring, honest adult who is focused primarily on fostering growth” (Blanco, Muro, & Stickley, 2014, p. 3).
Play therapy supervisees seek “improvement of skills and techniques, professional support and increased self-awareness for identifying
Let’s Be Honest, Present, Trusting, and Invested Together LISA STAAB SHADBURN, PSYD, RPT-S
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