Enhancing clinical supervisors' compassion satisfaction through mentoring mental health clinicians
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Date
2023
Authors
Luft, Toupey M.
LaRocque, K. M.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mentoring Institute
Abstract
The overall purpose of the study was to generate an increased understanding of clinical supervisors’ (those
supervising mental health clinicians) experiences of compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue and to
obtain their views on how these affect their supervisory and clinical practice. Further, our purpose was to develop
recommendations for enhancing the relationships between clinical supervisors and the mental health
clinicians they supervise.
This study used a hermeneutic phenomenological (HP) approach. HP is well established as a language-based
methodology that allows for meaning generation through qualitative interviews (Moules et al., 2015). We
conducted in-depth interviews with nine clinical supervisors in the mental health field. We transcribed these
interviews verbatim and analyzed them for underlying meaning using HP. We used research team reflexive
practices as well as follow-up participant interviews to ensure trustworthiness. One of the key findings was
that clinical supervisors felt more satisfied (and by extension less fatigued) in their roles when they had the
opportunity to mentor less experienced mental health clinicians. They highlighted the joy that this brought
them and how it allowed them to navigate the demands of complex systems where cutbacks were the norm.
Mentoring junior clinicians was a way to encourage clinician development and to enhance the supervisory alliance.
This study adds to our knowledge about clinical supervision relationships via the supervisory alliance,
the developmental relationship between supervisors and therapist supervisees. There is an abundance of
research on the perspectives of therapists, but we do not know much about how supervisors experience this
supervisory alliance. This study also adds to the literature on clinical supervision by explicating how mentorship
can affect supervisees as well as clients by extension through parallel processes (Tracey et al., 2012).
Description
Keywords
Clinical supervisors , Mental health field , Mentoring , Supervision relationships , Compassion satisfaction , Compassion fatigue
Citation
Luft, T. M., & LaRocque, K. M. (2023). Enhancing clinical supervisors' compassion satisfaction through mentoring mental health clinicians. The Chronicle of Mentoring & Coaching, 7(16), 382-387.