Keywords

As the United States population continues to diversify (US Census, 2013), it is imperative that counselors, therapists, and clinical supervisors become culturally and cross-culturally responsive (ACA Code of Ethics, 2014; COAMFTE, 2015). The parallel process between clinical supervision and the delivery of culturally competent counseling and therapeutic services has been well documented (Arczynski & Morrow, 2016; Estrada, Frame, & Williams, 2004; Falender & Shafranske, 2012). Supervisors are charged with supervisees’ assessment and development of cultural competency in therapeutic practice. Research studies (Soheilian, Inman, Klinger, Isenberg, & Kulp, 2014; Wong, Ong, & Ishiyama, 2013) explain the process of becoming culturally responsive as including both planned and unplanned cultural experiences. A key factor in this process is the ability of the supervisor to engage in conversations about these experiences with supervisees while demonstrating a reflexive and safe alliance that addresses cultural responsiveness at a supervisory and therapeutic level. In order to be transparent about the cultural factors that influence my perspective of culturally responsive training and supervision, I would like to locate myself in the context of various sociopolitical factors. I would be remiss if I did not mention that the meaning of each of these locations for me is constructed of various experiences in relationship to others that unfortunately cannot be fully addressed in this chapter due to page limitations. Therefore, I request that the reader keep in mind that the discovery process of identity location requires time, face-to-face interactions, and the continuous building of relationship. I identify as a Latina cisgender female, who grew up in a single-parent working-class/lower socioeconomic household and who has now become part of middle class socioeconomically. I partially grew up in Guatemala and the United States. I was born in the United States, affording me citizenship by birth, which, at times, places me in a privileged position. Other places of privilege include my identity as heterosexual and well educated. I am mostly able bodied. I also identify as bicultural, valuing aspects of my Guatemalan and US culture. I construct my racial identity as being a human being with a multiracial mix of indigenous, White, and Moroccan ancestry. These sociopolitical identities are the most salient ones at this point in my life. Additional identities include being part of a cross-cultural couple, and I am a proud parent of a multiracial and multiethnic female preteen who visually appears White. In this chapter, I address the notion of professional competencies/responsiveness related to clinical training and supervision of counselors and family therapists. Sociopolitical location awareness and knowledge of privilege and oppression is a primary component of developing professional cultural competencies in the supervisory relationship . Further, this chapter provides a review of the education and supervision literature regarding cross-cultural competency as a launching point into discussions of more process-oriented perspectives in the learning paradigm. The chapter explores the use of active voices in the integration of cultural responsiveness and responsibility in the educator/student and the supervisee/supervisor relationships via literature, case example, and experiential exercises.

Multicultural Competence Professional Standards

Multicultural counseling has been defined as implementing goals consistent with “the lived experiences and cultural values of clients” (Sue & Torino, 2005, p. 12). This definition acknowledges multiple client identities and uses universal and culture-specific strategies and roles in the healing process while balancing the salience of individualism and collectivism in assessment, diagnosis, and treatment interventions of clients and client systems (Sue & Sue, 2015). The call for practitioners, supervisors, and educators to be culturally responsive can be found in various ethical and accreditation standards in the counseling and family therapy fields. For example, the American Counseling Association endorsed the multicultural and social justice (MSJ) advocacy competency standards (Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2015) in July 2015. These standards were updated from the original multicultural competency standards endorsed in 1992. The MSJ competencies focus on “intersection of identities and the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression that influence the counseling relationship.” (p. 3). The model highlights the importance of both client and counselor sociopolitical factors in the development of the counseling relationship. It places the responsibility on counselors to develop culturally sensitive and socially just self-awareness of attitudes and beliefs, knowledge, skills, and action as they provide service to all clients. These competency standards call for counselors to be cognizant of systems of privilege and oppression in a client’s life context. It also calls for counselors to take their own context into consideration in their provision of counseling services.

Another example of the relevance of cultural competency can be found in the COAMFTE accreditation Standards Version 12, “MFTs are multiculturally-informed and consider a global context” (2016, p. 3). Moreover, the standards go on to state:

Programs teach ways that MFTs can support marginalized and underserved communities and demonstrate an appreciation for the many ways that discrimination negatively influences the lives of marginalized and underserved people served by MFT professionals, including antiracism and work with sexual and gender minorities and their families. The standards promote inclusion, respect for diversity, non-discrimination, and social responsibility from a perspective that is appreciative of the effects of larger sociocultural factors on experience. (p. 4)

For practicing mental health professionals, ACA and AAMFT ethics codes hold clinical practitioners, supervisors, and educators accountable for not discriminating based on client’s sociopolitical identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion/spirituality, etc.). The ethical guideline of practicing within the scope of training emphasizes the importance of multicultural competence and responsiveness in the provision of quality services to diverse clientele. Ethical guidelines that are responsive to our growing multicultural society are imperative in using best practices in clinical, supervisory, and educational settings.

Conceptual Definitions of Culturally Competent/Responsive Supervision

Cultural-competent and responsive supervision entails engagement in the continuing growth of awareness of supervisor and supervisee as cultural beings, increasing knowledge base of multicultural and advocacy issues and their impact on the therapeutic and supervisory relationship , and applying culturally responsive techniques in assessment, conceptualization, and intervention in client cases (Corey, Hayes, Moulton, & Muratori, 2010). Effective multicultural counseling supervision requires supervisors to holistically address multicultural issues within the supervisor/supervisee/client triad. In order to do so, supervisors must promote multiculturalism within their educational or clinic-based institution, recognize how their own and their supervisees and client’s worldviews impact therapy, include cultural issues, and develop specific stage by stage multicultural competency goals for trainees (Leong & Wagner, 1994). The importance of multicultural and cross-cultural supervision is recognized widely and integrated into various clinical supervision frameworks (Falander & Shafranske, 2012). The movement toward outcome-based measures of competency in clinical practice and supervision continues to highlight the importance of vigorous research to guide models of practice for culturally responsive training and supervision. The implications for culturally competent supervision have been described as (1) facilitating and engaging in the transformation to competency-based supervision remaining mindful of power, perspective, the cultural and diversity relativity, and context of competencies; (2) encouraging methodological advances and new constructs in supervision research; (3) attending to multiple identities of client(s), supervisees, and supervisors; (4) translating robust results into frameworks for training supervisors; (5) conducting research on effectiveness of supervision training for supervisors in development and for more experienced supervisors; and (6) increasing attention to cross-national studies of supervision practice, international competency standards, and evolving practices and guidelines in the international arena (Westefeld, 2009).

The Supervisory Case

The following case is a conglomeration of various clinical and supervisory cases. Identities have been changed in order to protect any potential breach of confidentiality. The case is presented as a tool for further reflection as we explore the concepts, research outcomes, models, and supervisory relationship styles presented in the literature as components of multicultural supervision.

A Latino identified family, the Vegas family , is made up of a biological father, Roberto, and two daughters, Rebeca and Ingrid. The wife/mother, Teresa, had passed away 2 years ago, leaving the father as a single parent. The father identifies as a 50-year-old, cisgender, heterosexual male who grew up in a two-parent household, high SES, and social class. Traditional Latino gender roles were enforced in the family. Catholicism was the identified religion, even though the father stated that he did not have time to go to church and had grown distant from the religious practice. The father’s family lived in Chile where he was raised until college when he immigrated to the United States. The father is a surgeon who spends many hours away from the house and has hired a live-in nanny, Sue, to take care of the girls. Rebeca (12 years old) and Ingrid (10 years old) were both born in the United Sates. They currently identify as cisgender females, heterosexual, upper class, able bodied, and non-practicing Catholics. The family presents to therapy after Rebeca’s teacher discovers poetry writings referencing thoughts of suicide in Rebeca’s notebook.

The therapist/supervisee (Lynn) is a 27-year-old Euro-American, middle-class, able-bodied, cisgender heterosexual female currently completing her doctorate in family therapy. She lived in Costa Rica for a year between her bachelors and master’s program. She has an affinity for Latino culture and has focused on exploring multicultural issues as part of her clinical focus. She is supervised by a 43-year-old Latinx (i.e., a term encompassing Latin-American culture and the acceptance of various gender identities) cisgender female (Lorena) who grew up in a working-class single-parent family with external family supports. The supervisor currently holds a PhD and currently identifies as living in a lower middle-class status.

Culturally Competent Supervision Case Reflection

What are the potential social locations impacting the supervisor-supervisee-client family triad? How do the lived experiences of each person in the triad influence both what we see and what we might be blind to as a result of those experiences? What hypotheses need to be developed about power dynamics based on the intersectionality of social location (e.g., gender and ethnicity, gender and social class, gender and level of education)? How do these reflections and hypotheses begin to shape the supervisory goals toward increase cultural competency and responsiveness?

Research and Culturally Competent Supervision

Six domains are suggested for exploration in guiding supervisors’ multicultural competence: awareness of personal values, biases, and worldviews, facilitation of supervisees’ awareness of personal values and beliefs, facilitating multicultural client conceptualizations, guide supervisees toward utilizing culturally appropriate interventions with clients, attending to multicultural processes in supervision, and effectively evaluating supervisees’ multicultural competencies (Ancis & Ladany, 2010). These six domains can be found in most supervision models integrating multiculturalism and have been further supported as crucial ingredients in the development of culturally competent counselors and therapist (Soheilian et al., 2014; Wong et al., 2013).

In a study assessing supervisors’ culturally competent responsive supervision, students categorized the following as contributing to effective supervision: (a) competence, (b) competency-facilitation of learning, (c) relationship factors, and (d) effectiveness of evaluation (reference). The categories identified by supervisors for effective supervision include (a) student’s development, (b) relationship factors, (c) ethics, and (d) adaptability (reference). Researchers also found positive and negative themes in key areas of supervision. The positive themes included (a) personal attributes of the supervisor, (b) supervision competencies, (c) mentoring, (d) relationship, and (e) multicultural supervision competencies. Negative themes were identified as (a) personal difficulties as a visible minority, (b) negative personal attributes of the supervisor, (c) lack of safe and trusting relationship, (d) lack of multicultural supervision competencies, and (e) lack of supervision competencies (Wong et al., 2013).

In a discovery-oriented qualitative study exploring supervisees’ perceived experiences of supervisor multicultural competence in supervision and its impact on supervisees’ clinical work, Soheilian et al. (2014) found the most common focus of content in the data was race followed by gender, ethnicity, and religion/spirituality. The researchers examined culturally competent supervisor interventions. The results of this study revealed that supervisors frequently educated about and facilitated exploration of specific cultural issues, discussed culturally appropriate therapeutic interventions and skills, facilitated supervisee self-awareness within the supervision session, and challenged and encouraged cultural openness of supervisee’s understanding of client and cultural issues. This intervention in supervision led supervisees to modify their treatment approach, recognize personal limitations, and experience improved self-awareness as a counselor in their work with clients. The supervisees reported developing an enhanced understanding and empathy toward their clients.

Case Reflection

How do the supervisor and supervisee engage in a mutually reflective assessment of their level of competency, personal attributes, and ethical perspectives as individuals and members of a dyadic and triadic relationship in a clinical and educational context? How does the supervisor begin to gently challenge supervisee’s growth in cultural conceptualization and selection of culturally appropriate interventions?

Relational Factors in Culturally Competent Supervision

Parallel to the therapeutic process , psychosocial or relational functions in supervision impact the supervisory relationship defined as the “supervisee’s perceived safety, trust and alliance” (Hernandez, Taylor, & McDowell, 2009, p. 8). A connection between a supervisor and a supervisee, who identifies as a member of a socially marginalized group, needs a culturally responsive relational context for creating a sense of safety, trust, and alliance. An awareness of the supervisor’s power in relationship to the supervisee must be mindfully monitored in the creation of a safe alliance. To this end, Bernard (1994) provided an effective summary of standards that many in the field have recommended: (a) supervisors should be at least as multiculturally sensitive as their supervisees; (b) training programs should set multicultural competency standards for allowing a trainee to begin clinical experience and another standard for beginning entry-level practice; (c) supervisors use both developmental supervision models and racial identity development models to gauge supervisee readiness for challenging their multicultural skills and choose appropriate moments to do so; and (d) supervisors themselves should be supervised in enhancing their own multicultural development, in a hope to monitor and manage blind spots.

Attention to supervisory blind spots can also be found in a study of ten AAMFT-approved supervisors (Taylor, Hernandez, Deri, Rankin, & Siegel, 2007). The researchers indicate “all supervisors must be culturally competent or their trainees may continue the cycle of misusing power and privilege that can occur in the therapeutic process” (p. 17). They caution supervisors not to assume that a course on diversity will train students to protect their clients from racial, gender, class, and heterosexist biases. Three themes emerged from study participants describing their experiences as minority supervisors: supervisor’s initiative in integrating diversity, the impact of social location on supervision practices, and the need for mentoring the next generation of clinicians and supervisors. The participants in this study highlighted the importance of breaking the silence and addressing cultural issues. In the discussion of social location, participants noted that inability to confront issues from a gender lens analysis affects the interactions in the therapy and supervision room. A reflection of the intersectionality of gender and other sociopolitical factors is an important part of the social location conversation in supervision. Another intersectionality specifically mentioned was religion and sexual orientation. Researchers found this to be one of the strongest issues to address in the supervisor/supervisee processing and self-examination of differences, identity, and therapeutic role. The third theme, mentoring the next generation, brought to light the importance of identity development, self-care, and advocacy for self and others. Participants also mentioned the need to bridge the experience of supervision with professional development via role modeling and mentoring beyond clinical practice (e.g., presenting at conferences).

Research on feminist multicultural supervision emphasizes the reciprocal and dynamic process of ceaseless reflexive investigation of the impact of sociopolitical identities and contextual factors in the power dynamics within supervisory and therapeutic relationships. This model remains mindful of the realities of power inherent in the supervisory relationship and takes active stance to counterbalance the relentless intrusion of social power dynamics in the supervisory process. Due to the inherent imbalance of power, it is the supervisor’s responsibility to initiate the aforementioned reflexive process in the supervisory relationship and to encourage supervisees to engage in a similar process with their clients (Arczynski & Morrow, 2016). Relational factors in clinical supervision stress the importance of developing a safe alliance, assessing developmental level of cultural competency, engagement in a reflexive process, and openness to reciprocal learning. These relational factors and the components of cultural competency and responsiveness in supervision are at the core of multicultural supervision.

Case Reflection

What is the level of cultural competency of the supervisor and supervisee? How does the supervisor engage the supervisee in a relationship that creates a respectful and safe alliance in supervision? How does the supervisor remain mindful of the inherent imbalance of power? How does the supervisor challenge her own cultural awareness and knowledge-recognizing and role-modeling ways to address one’s limitations? What systemic factors are in place that support and hinder the supervisory relationship ? How does the supervisor encourage the supervisee to embrace a larger contextual systemic view that promotes advocacy for clients (e.g., restrictions of gender roles within cultural contexts that inhibit potential for emotional intimacy within families), as well as supervisees?

Learning Paradigms: Models of Multicultural Supervision

In this section I will explore the components of some of the most contemporary models of supervision focusing on the integration of multiculturalism . As with all models of counseling and supervision, the reader is invited to view these models as lenses that influence the conceptualization of supervisory relational dynamics. As such, the models are incomplete by design. The models presented here view the integration of multiculturalism as an ongoing lifelong dynamic process constantly shifting based on the various contexts present in supervision and therapy (Falender & Shafranske, 2012; Hook et al., 2016; Ober, Granello, & Henfield, 2009 ; Owen, 2013; Porter & Vasquez, 1997).

Cultural Humility in Clinical Supervision

Cultural humility is identified as a core component and foundational construct in the implementation of a multicultural orientation (Owen, 2013). A multicultural orientation is described as a way of being with clients. Therefore, cultural humility has been defined as “the ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other oriented in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the client [supervisee]” (Hook, Davis, Owen, Worthington, & Utsey, 2013, p. 354). Cultural humility is a lifelong process in which the supervisor continuously reflects on issues of power in the client-therapist-supervisor dynamic (Falender & Shafranske, 2012). A culturally humble counselor/therapist/supervisor is keenly aware of the limitations of one’s knowledge and understanding of a client’s cultural background. Hook et al. (2016) propose that the same principle of cultural humility can be applied to the supervisory relationship . They accentuate the importance of overcoming one’s view that one’s cultural worldviews, values, and beliefs are superior to that of others and to embrace and enact the concept of cultural humility in order to develop effective and strong relationships with diverse supervisees. Culturally humble supervisors are aware of cultural differences that may exacerbate the power differential in the supervisory relationship and how those are impacted by social identities. They also regulate their sense of superiority to avoid making assumptions and instead engage in an open and curious stance demonstrating interest in the supervisee’s perspective. A culturally humble perspective uses an “initiate-invite-instill approach” (p. 154). The supervisor initiates conversations about diversity and identities in psychotherapy and supervision. The supervisor invites supervisees to engage in and consider the ramifications of ongoing cultural dialogue and instills a value of respectful dialogue about culture in the supervisory context. For example, incorporating reflections of cultural factors that influence one’s belief about the change process, case conceptualizations, and treatment planning.

In the Vegas family case , both supervisor and supervisee engaged in a conversation regarding their sociopolitical locations and what each of these meant to them. In the process of this conversation, the supervisee shared her concern regarding “making mistakes” in her cultural approach. Validation of this fear was important at this time in the supervisory relationship as was the supervisor sharing her own “missteps” in her development as a therapist and supervisor. In my experience, an important component of these cultural conversations is the acknowledgement of the lifelong learning process.

The use of outside experiences to increase supervisees’ cultural knowledge and humility requires the implementation of an assess-build-connect approach (Hook et al., 2016). In order to help supervisees develop an accurate view of their strengths, weaknesses, and limitations (components of cultural humility), supervisors must first help supervisees assess their strength and weaknesses in providing services to culturally diverse clients. This assessment must include the development of an awareness of limitations, possible biases, or blind spots in working with clients from diverse cultures. The authors of this model suggest the use of cultural genograms and direct observation of supervisees’ therapeutic work. Secondly, supervisors are encouraged to work collaboratively with supervisees to build a plan to proactively engage in working toward cultural humility. This might entail recommending coursework or training to strengthen areas of weaknesses. Personal therapy should also be considered. During our assessment of the family in the aforementioned case, we assessed levels of competency related to language proficiency in Spanish, level of acculturation knowledge, and personal and professional cross-cultural experiences. These conversations emphasized the need for acculturation assessment of the supervisor, supervisee, and client family. Additionally, a deeper understanding of the impact of gender from a cultural perspective was imperative, as was the exploration of the impact of intersectionality between gender, education, and social class. These reflections allowed both supervisor and supervisee to construct a set of assessment interventions that would more fully increase our understanding of the client family’s multiple identities and how they influenced the relationships and beliefs systems within the family. This in turn provided us with a richer and more dynamic process to develop culturally appropriate interventions.

The third focus of this model is to encourage supervisees to connect with culturally different individuals and groups. Supervisors can encourage supervisees to put themselves in situation where they can have a positive contact with individuals different from them. Enacting cultural humility in the supervisory relationship invites the supervisor to be more attuned to the supervisee’s cultural context and in return invites supervisees to become more reflectively curious about their clients’ cultural and social context. Many of my supervisees have had cultural immersion experiences via education abroad programs and/or volunteering abroad programs. These experiences have increased their awareness and in some cases, their knowledge base of particular cultures. Both their experiences and my own partially growing up in Guatemala can seduce us into believing we have a more accurate picture of the client family whose country of origin we have had experiences in. It is important during these experiences that we remain vigilant and enact cultural humility as we explore the client’s experience of their own culture. Our “visitor” or “temporary citizen status” in their country of origin may cloud our ability to fully listen to the family’s own experience in their country or community.

Synergistic Model of Multicultural Supervision

The Synergistic Model of Multicultural Supervision (SMMS) (Ober et al., 2009) uses Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956), the Heuristic Model of Nonoppressive Interpersonal Development (HMNID) (Ancis & Ladany, 2001), and the multicultural counseling competencies (Sue et al., 1992). Bloom’s taxonomy offers a model that supports the supervisee’s current developmental stage and encourages supervisee growth through intentional cognitive scaffolding, e.g., from rigid thinking to cognitive complexity. The model provides six levels of growth that are cumulative, each level building on the next. Ordered from least to most complex, the levels of the model are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

HMNID supports the process of learning and supplies a method for understanding multiculturalism and multicultural counselor competence in personally meaningful ways. This model asserts that every person has components of identity (e.g., race, age, gender, religious affiliation) that identify the person as a member of a group that is either socially oppressed or socially privileged. There can be intersection of identity that belong in socially oppressive and/or socially privileged groups. This idea is acknowledged in the new MSJ competencies model (Ratts et al., 2015). The authors note the critical component of the person’s perception of their place in a socially oppressed group or a socially privileged group due to its impact on all interactions with others either within or outside the individual’s identified groups. These perceptions and behaviors are terms the means of interpersonal functioning (MIF , Ancis & Ladany, 2001) takes into account as it moves the supervisee through four phases of development that move from complacency and limited awareness about differences, privilege, and oppression to increased awareness about diversity issues and a commitment to multicultural counselor competencies. This model acknowledges that the supervisor and supervisee can be at different phases of development across the various sociopolitical factor/identities. The combination of respective phases can result in four types of supervisory relationship s: (1) progressive, where the supervisor has more advanced knowledge of a particular identity; (2) parallel advance or (3) parallel delayed, where the supervisor and supervisee are at similar knowledge bases; and, (4) regressive, the supervisee is more advanced in their knowledge base than the supervisor.

SMMS asks that the supervisor and supervisee determine the specific domain of multicultural competency on which to focus. In order to evaluate the domain to focus on, the supervisees’ phase of the MIF is used with the intention of facilitating the supervisee’s growth into a higher level of multicultural functioning. Movement through the various phases and domains requires supervisor intervention to aid in the supervisees’ movement and growth.

I incorporated the SMMS model in my work with a supervisee who had a broad and deep knowledge of issues of gender identity (i.e., parallel advanced supervisory relationship ) but limited knowledge of the intersection of gender, religion, and ethnicity (i.e., progressive supervisory relationship ). We targeted the intersectionality of gender, religion, and ethnicity as an area of growth. The incorporation of the SMMS provided the cognitive mapping that would clarify methods of intervention to enhance knowledge of multiple realities within the therapeutic relationship and the relationship between family members. The supervisee explored questions of gender identity, gender socialization, and religious beliefs that increase their ability to hold multiple perspectives and contradictory belief systems within the family. The exploration of belief systems and how they enhanced the family member’s survival provided the context necessary for the supervisees to increase their cognitive complexity and learn to respect and respond to the clients’ needs from a culturally responsive frame.

Feminist Multicultural Supervision

Feminist multicultural supervision is defined as collaborative, mutual, and reflective process that attends to contextual and sociocultural processes (FMS) (Porter & Vasquez, 1997). This model integrates a focus on boundaries, hierarchies, gender, race, and diversity of all kinds. FMS encourages supervisor and supervisee reflections on their individual and systemic context as well as the dyad interactional/process and its basis on social identities and issues of privilege, power, and oppression (Arczynski & Morrow, 2016). FMS supervisors help supervisees understand how the work in the counseling room is impacted by the larger sociopolitical context, model advocacy, activism, and social justice qualities as part of the supervisory relationship (Porter & Vasquez, 1997). A qualitative study by Arczynski and Morrow (2016) examined the major dimensions and process of supervision for supervisors whose theoretical orientation integrated feminist and multiculturalism. The major conceptualization and practice component revealed in this study were the anticipation and management of power. There were seven categories associated with this component: (a) complexities of power in supervision (core), (b) bringing history into the supervision room, (c) creating trust through openness and honesty, (d) collaborative process, (e) meeting shifting developmental symmetries, (f) cultivating reflexivity, and (g) looking at and counterbalancing the impact of context. In this context, power was defined as “the ability to influence the lives of others and their own lives” (p. 5). Social locations, evaluation and gatekeeping, and supervisory power encompassed the sources of power that conflicted with supervisors’ desires for egalitarian and empowering relationships with their supervisees. Supervisors reported addressing this tension via enlistment of supervisees as partners in co-construction of productive learning experiences and in caring for clients’ needs. This process allowed supervisors to share their power with supervisees.

Participants acknowledged bringing history into the room by addressing how their own life experiences dealing with their social identities influenced their supervisory work. Supervisors created trust through openness and honesty by laying things on the table. They acknowledged the influences of “their power, histories and identities early in supervisory relationship s in order to subvert traditional power dynamics in supervision” (p. 7). Collaborative processes were enacted by resisting theoretical approaches emphasizing directive, hierarchical supervision interventions and instead focusing on egalitarian-inspired interventions thereby empowering supervisees by facilitating supervisees’ sense of competency in their own skills rather than just their limitations. They engaged supervisees in the creation of supervisory goals through dialogue of “supervisees’ prior experiences, aptitudes and growth edges, relational preferences, and multicultural competencies…” (p. 7). Supervisors also invited more of their supervisees’ perspectives in order to understand their clinical approach. This process allowed supervisors to assess when direct suggestions were needed or when support to help the supervisees find their own direction was more appropriate. Supervisors also discussed the importance of ongoing developmental assessments in order to allow supervisors to respectfully match their supervisory strategies to their supervisees’ developmental trajectory. Participants recognized that novice trainees are most dependent on supervisors to provide learning opportunities therefore creating a greater tension among collaboration, transparency, and power at this level of training. However, the focus of supervision continues to be moving the collegial relationships into supervisee-directed unstructured process.

The cultivation of critical reflexivity helps supervisors to limit the cost of using their supervisory power to better implement collaboration and transparency. The growth of critical consciousness to assess the influence of social locations, power, bias, and history is important in decreasing potential for harmful supervision. Indeed, the Arczynski and Morrow study highlights the harmful effects of supervisors “who lack self-awareness of their biases, motives, growth edges, and identity statuses as a strategy to anticipate the influence of their power as supervisors on supervisory processes and relationships” (p. 10). Supervisors counterbalanced the impact of contextual power by engaging in reflexive questioning of the ways internal and external context impacted themselves, their supervisees, and supervisees’ clients in the ways they showed up to therapy and supervision. Supervisors also encouraged supervisees to advocate in the community in order to counterbalance the power of different institutions within the community. Additionally, supervisors supported their supervisees’ self-advocacy efforts to create healthier environments for themselves and their continuous development.

Case Reflection

In supervising the Vegas case, the supervisor and supervisee struggled with the “traditional gender roles ” to which the father adhered, and that limited his ability to be present and nurturing with his daughters. A discussion ensued about the importance of understanding the family’s cultural context within their traditional cultural roles where gender and culture intersected. How did this impact power in the family? How could a female therapist-in-training gently challenge the male doctor regarding the impact of these cultural roles in the family functioning? Was this even appropriate? How did the hierarchical traditions in the family reflect the hierarchical traditions in the supervisory relationship ? How were the supervisor and supervisee’s gender identifications a strength and limitation in influencing the family? How could we advocate in the client’s larger system? Could we invite extended family to communicate a message regarding power and responsibility of fathers in Latino families? How was the Latina supervisor’s own ethnic cultural experience influencing her perspective and her knowledge power within the supervisory relationship?

Multicultural Group Supervision

The interdependent nature of group supervisees’ development as counselors requires the vigilant attention of group development dynamics by group supervisors prior to setting individual goals (Hayes, Blackman, & Brennan, 2001). Bernard and Goodyear (2004) suggest that a supervision group moves through developmental phases similar to a therapy group (i.e., forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning). Group supervisees benefit from vicarious learning, peer support and validation, direct feedback from various sources, and exploration of personal dynamics within the group (Bernard & Goodyear, 2004). Group supervision may be useful in addressing multicultural issues because the presence of additional supervisees, who may have received more multicultural training, creates more opportunities for cross-cultural discussions and interactions. Kaduvettoor and co-authors (2009) examined specific multicultural events in face-to-face group supervision. These authors found hindering event (i.e., events that block or limit supervisees’ growth in multicultural responsiveness) categories consisting of five items: indirect discussion, peer multicultural conflicts, supervisor multicultural conflicts, misapplication of multicultural theory, and none. They also found helpful event categories including peer vicarious learning, multicultural learning and conceptualization, extra group events, and supervisor direct influence. Suggestions for improvement included no change, more supervisor involvement, more practical application or intervention, more group process, more or better integration of multicultural issues, more personal awareness, and more interpersonal sensitivity.

Case Reflection

Even though both the client family and the supervisor identify as members of the Latino culture, what are some of the reflections that implement a cultural humility perspective in order to enrich the supervisor and supervisee’s understanding of the clients’ performance of their own cultural perspective? How does the therapist/supervisee’s experience living in a Latin-American country impact her sense of cultural humility when working with this client family? What is the potential power dynamic of intersectionality of cultural age values and gender values in both various subsystems of the triadic relationship? How can a cultural humility stance invite further exploration of these dynamics? How do cultural humility and social advocacy intersect? How are the supervisor and supervisee engaging in a collaborative evaluation process of cognitive growth and cultural understanding? How are identifications with culturally oppressed and privileged groups impacting the various levels of relationships within the triad? How can consultation with a professional group of colleagues influence the conceptualization of the clinical case and the dynamics within the therapeutic and supervisory relationship s?

Cultural Responsiveness Roles and Responsibilities

Supervisors are charged with initiating conversations about the impact of sociopolitical contextual factors on the supervisory and therapeutic relationship (Estrada et al., 2004). Conversations about race and other marginalized identities in supervision need to consider the anxiety and fear that can often accompany a focus on these issues and thereby require the establishing of a context in which relational risks might be taken (Mason, 2005). An example of such is to engage supervisees in the self-reflexive exercise of thinking and talking about their own racial identity and the influence they think it might have upon the supervisory relationship (Pendry, 2012). The supervision literature (Inman & DeBoer Kreider, 2013) calls for examining specific skills and techniques used to integrate cultural diversity issues into supervision. While our education models often center on acquisition of concrete knowledge, cultural responsiveness requires both a planned and unplanned development of knowledge. This point is evidenced in the experience of seven diverse therapists in a supervision course as they struggle with the real-world application of multicultural supervision (Christiansen et al., 2011). In their anecdotal stories of supervisory experiences, the authors found similarities across each of their cases including (a) negative emotional reactions (e.g., anxiety, anger), (b) spontaneous and unplanned instances of multicultural supervision, (c) a need for supervisor’s support and validation of their experiences, and (d) a clear need for a safe space to discuss and process their experiences at a supervisory level. The authors emphasize that activities such as cultural genograms (Hardy & Laszloffy, 1995) provide a cognitive awareness of the impact of culture; however the real-world application of multicultural experiences calls for an emotional process in which supervisors and supervisees have the ability to sit with the discomfort of various emotions while simultaneously continue to be open and engaged in the supervisory process by working through the discomfort. The process of cultural sensitivity is an “ongoing experience rather than an endpoint, and it is the affective process that is important” (p. 118).

As a supervisor and educator, I have found the use of cultural genograms to be quite helpful in increasing awareness and knowledge of most supervisees. I would be negligent if I did not mention that there are times when doing a cultural genogram highlights the systems of oppression that have been in place historically and sometimes currently. There are many students of color who have no access to their family histories (e.g., enslavement, lack of records in the country of origin). The emotional processing of these historical facts adds to the responsibility as a supervisor to support and provide resources for supervisees when necessary.

It is also important for supervisors to remember that our own bias and assumptions about particular cultural groups can influence our expectations of what supervisees need to address. In our naivete of multicultural models, well-meaning supervisors can pursue a conversation regarding cultural differences that the supervisee is not ready or willing to have. It is the supervisors’ responsibility to assess the supervisee’s cultural identity and respect the power dynamic in the supervisory relationship . I have had conversations with supervisees of color who experience the conversation regarding cultural differences as one that is aimed at alleviating white guilt more than enhancing the collaborative process in the supervisory relationship . We are works in progress.

Conclusion

The major responsibility to provide opportunities and guidance for continued growth and competence in culturally responsive counseling and therapy falls on supervisors and educators as the more experienced members of the profession. Supervision provides a context for the actualization of the summative experiences of awareness and knowledge from academic coursework (see Appendix A). The reciprocal nature of relationships also means that supervisees have a responsibility to engage in their own learning process and to strive for their continuous growth and development in cultural sensitivity and responsiveness in clinical practice. This chapter investigated the definitions of cultural competency and responsiveness, the research facilitating our understanding of supervisees and supervisors’ perspectives on cultural competency and responsiveness, the models integrating multicultural supervision, and the roles and responsibilities of enacting such concepts in the process of culturally responsive supervision. It is a shared belief that cultural competency and responsiveness are lifelong processes that entail a constant reflection of social identities, power dynamics, and internal and external contextual factors. As a supervisor and clinician, I find myself often reflecting on what I know and what I do not know. Part of this process requires me to confront my own biases and complacency in looking at the world through my lenses and having to make myself uncomfortable by embracing the limitations of my own lack of knowledge. The supervisory alliance is a key factor in the continuous growth of future generations of culturally responsive counselors and therapists.