For many therapists, conflict with their clients, whether overt or subtle, can be a frustrating impediment to change. The same is true for clinical supervisors, who must juggle trainees’ relationships with their clients alongside the complex and often charged interactions that take place during the supervisory hour.

This book provides a blueprint to help supervisors navigate the most challenging dilemmas and conflicts that arise in the supervisory process. These include addressing skill deficits and competency concerns, working through role conflicts, and ethnicity and gender-related misunderstandings. Because these interpersonal dilemmas can be so challenging, they often represent a golden opportunity for real progress, in psychotherapy and supervision alike.

With the aid of detailed and compelling case examples, the authors present a process model that offers specific strategies - such as exploration of feelings, focus on self-efficacy, and attention to parallel processes - that together enable supervisors and trainees to successfully resolve the problem at hand and achieve lasting success. This theoretically-grounded text is appropriate for supervisors and trainees of all theoretical orientations.