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Old Dec 24, 2018, 06:20 PM
Ididitmyway's Avatar
Ididitmyway Ididitmyway is offline
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Member Since: Jul 2011
Posts: 2,071
I am a US based psychotherapist.

I never had similar feeling for any of my supervisors. I wonder if it has anything to do with the differences in training. In the US the professional nature of the supervisor-trainee relationship is strongly emphasized, surprisingly more so than the therapist-client relationship.

Here, it's very unlikely that a supervisor would create an atmosphere that would encourage trainees a.k.a interns to share much (if anything at all) of their personal issues on order to improve their performance as a therapist. Here, a supervisor would simply suggest to an intern to work on the specific issue with the intern's therapist, if the supervisor believes that there is a specific issue that prevents the intern from doing their best.

It is generally considered inappropriate here for a supervisor to dig into a trainees personal stuff and to do the work of their therapist. This is not what supervision is about. It is about discussing clients cases, not trainees' personal issues. A supervisor can point out that some personal issue seems to be an obstacle for a trainee in their work, but then they suggest them to address it with their therapist and they stop at that

There was a time here back in the 60s and 70s when the professional boundaries between supervisors and trainees were completely blurred. This led to a lot of abuse of power.

The professional community put a stop to this, eventually, and wisely so. There is a whole section in the professional code dedicated to supervisor-supervisee relationship. A therapist who blurrs boundaries with a trainee can get into the same kind of trouble as when they do it with a client. And, since we, mostly, have group supervision here, it's highly unlikely for a supervisor to create an environment where those boundaries are blurred. It never happened during my training years. All my supervisors always kept a professional distance and always gently but firmly discouraged any personal sharing. We strictly discussed clients only.

I can't judge what's happening in your supervision. What you've described is very general and not enough for me to form an opinion. I think, the best thing to do is to take it to your own therapy. If you don't have a therapist you should get one ASAP. You can't do this work without doing your own work and without knowing what it's like to be in the client's shoes. I'd suggest to talk this over with a therapist before addressing this with your supervisor.
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