Supervision in training in child and adolescent psychotherapy

Background In Germany, supervision is a legally required and important element in psychotherapy training; however, so far there are only a small number of studies with respect to the content of supervision, techniques used, form of feedback etc., and especially in the training in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Objective The focus of this study is to assess case-related supervision evaluations in a naturalistic setting and to present the supervision topics concerned. In addition, influencing factors, such as patient characteristics, on the content of supervision are examined. Methods The sample included 363 case-related supervision evaluations of 44 psychotherapists and 19 supervisors. Patient characteristics (e.g., psychopathology) and the duration of training are examined as possible influencing factors on the topics and their perceived utility in supervision. Results The three most frequent topics in supervision were the use of therapeutic methods, therapist-patient relationship, and diagnostic or differential diagnostic aspects. In general, the external symptoms of patients most likely had an influence on the topic of the supervision. The only technique investigated, the use of videos in supervision, was never or only rarely used in 40.8% of the cases and in this aspect there were large differences between the individual supervisors. Conclusion A structured organization of supervision with instructions on video usage or other active and feedback-oriented techniques could improve the supervision within the framework of training in psychotherapy.