All supervisors have the potential to be harmful

Abstract

Harmful supervision is unethical and wrong. However, as the narratives in this Special Issue illustrate, it is all too common. After sharing our general thoughts on the stories featured in this issue, we highlight several themes that emerged within and across narratives. We then discuss the implications of these themes and the extant empirical literature on harmful supervision for clinical practice and future research. Most importantly, we argue that the first step to avoiding and stopping harmful clinical supervision is to recognize that all current and future clinical supervisors, ourselves included, are capable of engaging in harmful supervisory practices.