1. Paper title: SPIRIT, SOUL, AND STRUGGLE IN SUPERVISION: MY EIGHT ANCHORS OF HONOR
Author:
WATKINS Jr. C. Edward
Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas; Institute of Psychotherapy, Psychological Counselling and Clinical Supervision, Reșița, Romania
Email:cewatkins54@outlook.com
Abstract: I have been given the privilege of sharing with you some of my most cherished beliefs and convictions and views about supervision, and I do so subsequently. Although there is a host of beliefs, convictions, and views that I could share, I emphasize eight that are most meaningful to me — what I consider to be my eight Anchors of Honor. These Anchors, while grounding and guiding my supervisory work, also reflect my way of honoring and holding in mind the awe and wonder of supervision itself, that grandly generative service with which we as supervisors are graciously gifted. What follows is an adaptation of two presentations, first, the Lectio Magistralis, an invited address delivered at the International Conference: Supervision in Psychotherapy, June 7th, 2025 [1], upon conferral of the Doctor Honoris Causa by the “Tibiscus” University of Timişoara (the greatest honor of my professional life) and, second, Spirit, Soul, and Struggle in Supervision, an invited keynote address delivered at the First Latin American Conference on Clinical Supervision, October 9th, 2025 [2].
Key words: supervision, anchor, honor, development, supervisee identity
International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, no. 8, year 2026, p. 7-15, DOI: 10.47409/ijsp.2026.8.1
2. Paper title: COUNTERTRANSFERENCE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY: IS IT AN IMPEDIMENT OR BENEFICIAL?
Author:
Richard G. ERSKINE
Training Director, Institute for Integrative Psychotherapy; Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Deusto University, Bilbao, Spain
Email:integpsych@earthlink.net
Abstract: There is a common understanding that countertransference is an impediment in psychotherapy. This article explores the beneficial aspects of countertransference and the significance on attending to countertransference in psychotherapy supervision. A distinction is made between Reactive Countertransference which is not therapeutic and a Responsive Countertransference which is therapeutic. Two psychotherapy examples are provided that describe the author’s therapeutic use of countertransference.
Key words: countertransference, responsive countertransference, reactive countertransference, integrative psychotherapy, client-therapist relationship, supervision
International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, no. 8, year 2026, p. 17-24, DOI: 10.47409/ijsp.2026.8.2
3. Paper title: LIVE SUPERVISION IN PSYCHOTHERAPY TRAINING
Authors:
BÖHM Angelika
Austrian Association for Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy (AAGTP), International Society for Gestalt Theory and its Applications (GTA)
Email: angelika.boehm@oeagp.at
LINDORFER Bernadette
Austrian Association for Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy (AAGTP), International Society for Gestalt Theory and its Applications (GTA)
Email: bernadette.lindorfer@oeagp.at
STERNEK Katharina
Austrian Association for Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy (AAGTP), International Society for Gestalt Theory and its Applications (GTA)
Email: katharina.sternek@oeagp.at
Abstract:In the field of psychotherapy training, live supervision offers specific learning opportunities that extend beyond traditional forms of post-session discussion. By directly observing the therapeutic interaction, supervisory interventions can be more precisely attuned to concrete clinical situations, implicit decision-making processes can be rendered visible, and alternative courses of action can be collaboratively explored. At the same time, the use of live supervision raises methodological, ethical, and structural questions, for example, regarding experiences of evaluative pressure, the therapeutic relationship, or the protection of patients. Against this background, the present article aims to systematically examine experiences with live supervision within psychotherapy training. In addition to a conceptual clarification, didactic potentials as well as key challenges and contextual conditions are outlined. The goal is to contribute a differentiated perspective to the ongoing discussion on the role and significance of live supervision in contemporary psychotherapy training.
Key words: supervision, live-supervision, Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy, psychotherapy training
International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, no. 8, year 2026, p. 25-34, DOI: 10.47409/ijsp.2026.8.3
4. Paper title: SUPERVISION AS A RELATIONAL PROCESS IN MINDFULNESS- AND COMPASSION-ORIENTED INTEGRATIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY (MCIP)
Author:
Claudia Gabriela DUMITRIU – Facultatea de Psihologie şi Ştiinţele Educaţiei, Universitatea din București; ArtePsy – Asociatia de terapii expresiv-creative și psihologie clinică
Email: gabrielacdumitriu@gmail.com
Abstract: Mindfulness- and Compassion-Oriented Integrative Psychotherapy (MCIP) conceptualizes mindfulness and compassion as meta-processes of change unfolding within an attuned therapeutic relationship, supporting integration across cognitive, emotional, somatic, and interpersonal domains [1]. This theoretical paper extends the framework to clinical supervision, arguing that MCIP supervision is best understood as a relational process in which learning and professional development emerge from a mindful-compassionate field, not only from the transmission of techniques. Building on integrative supervision principles emphasizing the supervisory alliance, presence, and the supervisor’s role as a relational model [2], we propose that MCIP supervision cultivates therapist qualities that are clinically decisive yet difficult to teach through instruction alone, including embodied awareness, reflective capacity, emotional regulation, and self-compassion. Drawing on mindfulness-informed accounts of schema activation and transformation, we further propose that supervision can provide a context in which therapists recognize their own triggered maladaptive schemas and respond with compassion, reducing defensive reactivity and enabling more stable therapeutic presence [3]. Consistent with research linking stronger supervisory relationships to reduced burnout and improved coherence, this framework positions the supervisory bond as a key protective and meaning-making mechanism [4]. Ethical responsibility is addressed through compassionate accountability, maintaining evaluation without shaming while protecting client welfare [5, 2]. Finally, the paper highlights supervisor-centered protective practices as essential for sustaining attunement and preventing burnout.
Key words: clinical supervision, integrative psychotherapy, mindfulness, compassion, supervisory relationship, professional identity
International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, no. 8, year 2026, p. 35-44, DOI: 10.47409/ijsp.2026.8.4
5. Paper title: SUPERVISION AS A REFLECTIVE EDUCATIONAL SPACE FOR DEVELOPING SELF-REGULATION AND PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY. Implications for Psychotherapy-Informed Training in Educational and Psychosocial Professions
Author:
Carmen-Mihaela BĂICEANU VĂRĂŞTEANU – Facultatea de Psihologie şi Ştiinţele Educaţiei, Universitatea „Ovidius” din Constanţa; Institutul de psihoterapie, consiliere psihologică și supervizare clinică
Email: mihaela.baiceanu@365.univ-ovidius.ro
Abstract: In the current context of professional training in educational and psychosocial fields, emphasis is progressively shifting from the exclusive acquisition of technical competencies toward the development of professionals’ reflective, self-regulatory, and identity-related capacities. Although traditionally established as a mechanism for monitoring and guiding practice, supervision is increasingly recognized for its formative potential; however, its explicit role as an educational space that supports self-regulation and the formation of professional identity remains insufficiently conceptualized, especially outside clinical settings. This paper proposes a reconceptualization of supervision as a reflective educational space grounded in the paradigm of integrative psychotherapy, approached as an epistemological and relational reference rather than as a clinical intervention. Supervision is examined as a structured relational framework that supports self-regulation, guided reflection, and the integration of professional experience into professional identity development. A central contribution of the paper is the introduction of the concept of reflective holding, defined as a non-clinical educational function of supervision that integrates relational containment, guided reflection, and the support of self-regulation. Building on this concept, the paper proposes a coherent conceptual framework that articulates the relationship between supervision, reflection, self-regulation, and professional identity in educational and psychosocial contexts. The implications of this framework are discussed for initial and continuing training, mentoring, and professional development, with a focus on the role of reflective supervision in supporting professional sustainability and the ethical delimitation of practice.
Key words: supervision, reflective holding, reflective practice, self-regulation, professional identity, integrative psychotherapy
International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, no. 8, year 2026, p. 45-64, DOI: 10.47409/ijsp.2026.8.5
6. Paper title: RADICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY AND SUPERVISION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: POWER, CONTEXT, AND MENTAL HEALTH, PART I
Author:
Dana RAD – Center of Research Development and Innovation in Psychology, Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad
Email: dana@xhouse.ro
Abstract: This conceptual article clarifies radical psychotherapy as a family of clinically grounded, ethically explicit approaches that treat psychological distress as simultaneously intrapsychic and socio-structural. In response to contemporary mental health pressures, precarity, polarization, violence, burnout, and persistent inequality, we argue that strictly individualistic models can unintentionally pathologize adaptive responses to unsafe environments. We propose an “inside + world” model in which symptoms are understood as functional strategies shaped by internal dynamics and external power relations, and we outline five comparative axes that distinguish radical psychotherapy from decontextualized practice: explanatory frameworks, targets of change, therapist positioning, clinical language, and technique framing. A set of clinical postulates is advanced to guide practice: contextualization without erasing personal responsibility, explicit attention to power in the consulting room, shame as socially produced and relationally maintained, an anti-blame stance that avoids both culpabilization and romanticization of suffering, and the primacy of safety and dignity over therapeutic performance. We then translate these principles into practical strategies, including contextual case formulation, power mapping, depathologizing reframes, work with shame and internalized oppression, agency-building micro-interventions, ethical transparency, resource-oriented/community linkage, and evidence-based techniques (CBT/ACT/DBT) deployed within a radical frame. Finally, we address dilemmas concerning politicization, biological and trauma-informed balance, therapist competencies, and multidimensional evaluation. We conclude that radical psychotherapy does not replace established therapies; it recontextualizes them toward root causes power, context, and dignity so that healing is defined as symptom reduction alongside increased agency, protection, and socially recognized personhood.
Key words: radical psychotherapy; power; social determinants of mental health; contextual formulation; depathologization; dignity; agency; internalized oppression; shame; radical healing; critical psychotherapy; radical relationality
International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, no. 8, year 2026, p. 65-78, DOI: 10.47409/ijsp.2026.8.6
7. Paper title: RADICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY AND SUPERVISION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: POWER, CONTEXT, AND MENTAL HEALTH, PART II
Author:
Gavril RAD – Center of Research Development and Innovation in Psychology, Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad
Email: radgavrilarad@gmail.com
Abstract: This conceptual article clarifies radical psychotherapy as a family of clinically grounded, ethically explicit approaches that treat psychological distress as simultaneously intrapsychic and socio-structural. In response to contemporary mental health pressures, precarity, polarization, violence, burnout, and persistent inequality, we argue that strictly individualistic models can unintentionally pathologize adaptive responses to unsafe environments. We propose an “inside + world” model in which symptoms are understood as functional strategies shaped by internal dynamics and external power relations, and we outline five comparative axes that distinguish radical psychotherapy from decontextualized practice: explanatory frameworks, targets of change, therapist positioning, clinical language, and technique framing. A set of clinical postulates is advanced to guide practice: contextualization without erasing personal responsibility, explicit attention to power in the consulting room, shame as socially produced and relationally maintained, an anti-blame stance that avoids both culpabilization and romanticization of suffering, and the primacy of safety and dignity over therapeutic performance. We then translate these principles into practical strategies, including contextual case formulation, power mapping, depathologizing reframes, work with shame and internalized oppression, agency-building micro-interventions, ethical transparency, resource-oriented/community linkage, and evidence-based techniques (CBT/ACT/DBT) deployed within a radical frame. Finally, we address dilemmas concerning politicization, biological and trauma-informed balance, therapist competencies, and multidimensional evaluation. We conclude that radical psychotherapy does not replace established therapies; it recontextualizes them toward root causes power, context, and dignity so that healing is defined as symptom reduction alongside increased agency, protection, and socially recognized personhood.
Key words: radical psychotherapy; power; social determinants of mental health; contextual formulation; depathologization; dignity; agency; internalized oppression; shame; radical healing; critical psychotherapy; radical relationality
International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, no. 8, year 2026, p. 79-93, DOI: 10.47409/ijsp.2026.8.7
8. Paper title: SUPERVISION IN WARTIME UKRAINE: CULTIVATING RESILIENCE THROUGH TRAUMA-INFORMED CREATIVE EMBODIED APPROACHES (TICES)
Author:
Paula GRECH – France
Email: paulagrechjefford@gmail.com
Abstract: This paper analyses a series of supervision sessions supporting an individual and a group of Ukrainian therapists and psychologists via a voluntary online organisation known as PsyCrisis Ukraine. The supervision group met bi-monthly for just over a year. Our purpose, while highlighting supervision as a resourcing factor using creative embodied approaches to supervision, also emphasises the need to integrate a trauma resilience model (TRM) and a trauma-informed supervision model to help contain and work with aspects of vulnerability in the form of: stress, burnout and depression. As trauma continues to emerge as a result of the ongoing war, this article advocates increased self-care, emotional regulation support and a trauma-informed creative embodied supervision model (TICES).
Key words: resilience, trauma, emotional regulation, embodiment, creativity
International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, no. 8, year 2026, p. 95-112, DOI: 10.47409/ijsp.2026.8.8
9. Paper title: SUPERVISION AS A FRAMEWORK FOR PROFESSIONAL GROWTH AND SUPPORT FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS AND LOGOTHERAPISTS IN WARTIME
Authors:
Viktoriia BYKOVA – PhD in Pedagogy, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy at Alfred Nobel University (Dnipro, Ukraine)
Email: bykova.v@duan.edu.ua
Iryna OLIINYK – PhD in Pedagogy, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy at Alfred Nobel University (Dnipro, Ukraine)
Email: iv_oliynik@ukr.net
Ganna CHUPROVA – Certified and accredited logotherapist at the Viktor Frankl Institute in Vienna, founder and director of the Viktor Frankl Ukrainian Institute LLC
Email: anna.chuprova147@gmail.com
Abstract: The article presents the results of theoretical analysis and practical experience in organizing professional growth and support for psychologists and logotherapists during supervision. An analysis of scientific literature on the definition of the concept of “supervision” was carried out. It was established that supervision in Ukraine is at the stage of formation and development, but is a necessary condition for professional support of specialists. There is a lack of scientific research on the integration of logotherapy and existential analysis into the supervision process and no consensus on a comprehensive definition of supervision models and practical experience of supervision in the logotherapeutic approach. The main models of supervision that can be integrated into logotherapeutic practice are analyzed. The need to organize supervision for logotherapists as an integral part of their professional development and support for the quality of psychotherapeutic practice has been established. It has been determined that the supervision process provides space for reflection on professional experience, understanding of complex clinical cases, and analysis of therapeutic interventions.
The advantages of supervision in logotherapy in conditions of war and uncertainty are revealed.
Key words: supervision, supervision models, logotherapy, logotherapists, professional growth
International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, no. 8, year 2026, p. 113-121, DOI: 10.47409/ijsp.2026.8.9