W20 – New Reflections in the Virtual One-Way Mirror: Developments in Virtual Psychotherapy Supervision in the Post-COVID Era
Friday, Oct. 20
14:30 – 15:30 (1 hr)
Meeting Room: Beluga (3rd floor – B Tower)
Christian Schulz-Quach*, MD, MSc, MA, FHEA; Christian Schulz-Quach, MD MSc MA MRCPsych; Michael Armanyous, MBBCH, MRCPsych
CanMEDS Roles:
- Professional
- Communicator
- Medical Expert
At the end of this session, participants will be able to: 1) Define the term ‘telesupervision’ and three different forms of provision (asynchronous, synchronous, direct observation); 2) Evaluate the advantages and challenges of direct virtual observation during psychotherapy supervision; and 3) Reflect on the impact of frame shifting on supervisees.
The global COVID-19 pandemic changed the clinical supervision landscape in psychiatry virtually overnight. Virtual care/psychotherapy and virtual supervision for all modalities became the norm, with profound consequences on setting and framing expectations. This workshop will explore different established formats of virtual supervision (telephone, online platforms, and chat services) as described and reviewed in the literature. We will also highlight the discourse on ‘digital dissociation’ and the ‘constant presence of each other’s absence,’ which play a significant role in the phenomenology of online psychotherapy and supervision. We will demonstrate a case example of telesupervision as implemented at the University Health Network and the Division of Psychotherapy, Humanities and Psychosocial Interventions (PHPI) at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto. We will present a summary of the limited literature available to date on the experiences of supervisees and supervisors with telesupervision. We aim to engage other psychotherapy supervisors across Canada in a conversation about their experiences, benefit findings, and critical thoughts on shifting psychotherapy supervision into a digital space. Finally, we will use creative methodology to help workshop members express their sense of identity in their new roles as digital psychotherapy supervisors.
References:
- Soheilian SS, O’Shaughnessy T, Lehmann JS, et al. Examining the impact of COVID-19 on supervisees’ experiences of clinical supervision. Train Educ Prof Psychol 2022;17(2):167–175.
- Andreucci-Annunziata P, Mellado A, Vega-Muñoz A. Telesupervision in psychotherapy: a bibliometric and systematic review. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022;19(23):16366.
