Trauma-Informed Ethics in Supervision: Self-protective Behaviors

Supervisors are charged with developing supervisees to the level necessary to enter the profession with ethical, clinical, and professional behaviors to continue a field into the future with integrity. Supervisors take on significant risk in doing so often with only an interview and a few recommendations as collateral. It is only with time and the challenge to engage in open and vulnerable learning moments that supervisors begin to see through the masks that humans wear and understand the supervisee as their authentic self, their attachment patterns that dictate interactions, their need for self-protection, and how they are engaging in perceived threat defense. Supervisors are left to manage their internal functioning, the supervisee, and the organizational structure. This chapter will examine ensuring that all of this is managed safely, ethically, and proactively. This chapter will review the needed skills to develop this environment and the supervisor’s capability, and then a case study will be included for practical application and review.