Expert Clinical Supervisors’ Descriptions of Easy and Challenging Supervisees

Expert supervisors provided descriptions of what made two of their recent supervisees easy or challenging. Content analysis revealed seven categories of experts’ descriptions for those supervisees. Supervision behaviors, clinical competencies, traits and personal background, and self-awareness/self-reflectivity categories were the most frequently reported categories, regardless of the supervisee being easy or challenging. Comparisons of the seven categories did not yield significant differences in their frequencies for the easy and challenging supervisees. Importantly, the experts appeared to rely on objective (observable) rather than subjective assessments of their supervisees, whether easy or challenging. Limitations and implications for future research and practice are discussed