Questions to Ask During Clinical Supervision
Questions for a supervisee going into individual clinical supervision, covering how the hour is set up, how to bring a case so it gets worked on, what to ask about your own reactions, risk and ethics, and how to use a relationship in which you are also being evaluated.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
What do you want me to bring each week, and in what form?
Supervisors differ sharply on this: process notes, a written formulation, a recording, or a verbatim transcript. An unstated preference gets read as you being unprepared, and it is usually never said out loud unless you ask in the first session.
- 2
Do you want me to start with the case I am most stuck on, or with a caseload review?
The first ten minutes decide what gets the hour. If you open with a caseload sweep every week, the difficult case tends to arrive at minute fifty, which is exactly when there is no time to work on it.
- 3
Am I on track for my hours, and how are you recording them?
Direct and indirect hours, individual and group supervision, are counted differently by different boards. A discrepancy discovered at the end of a year usually cannot be corrected retroactively, so reconciling your log against theirs early is worth the awkwardness.
- 4
What is your legal responsibility for my clients?
In many arrangements the supervisor carries vicarious liability for your caseload, which changes what they need to know and what you are obliged to disclose. If they hold that responsibility, expect and welcome more questions about the cases you find least interesting.
- 5
What must you hear about immediately, and what can wait for our next hour?
Ask for a specific list rather than a principle: suicidal ideation, a disclosure of abuse, a client threatening someone, a boundary crossing, a complaint. Having that list before the situation arises is what stops you making the call at 9pm on a guess.
- 6
Here is what happened in the session. What did you notice that I did not?
Asking for observations rather than approval invites a different kind of answer. Supervisees who present a case as a finished story get agreement, and supervisees who present it as material get supervision.
- 7
What is your formulation of this client, and where does it differ from mine?
Comparing two formulations is more useful than asking what should I do, because it shows you the reasoning rather than the conclusion. The point of difference is usually where your blind spot is.
- 8
I felt bored with this client. What do you make of that?
Substitute whatever you actually felt: anxious, protective, irritated, drawn in. New supervisees hide these as confessions of incompetence, when they are often the clearest data in the room about what the client evokes in other people too.
- 9
What am I avoiding with this client?
This invites your supervisor to name a pattern you cannot see from inside it. If the answer comes instantly, they have been waiting for an opening to say it, which is worth noticing about how you receive feedback.
- 10
Is this the right approach for this presentation, or am I doing what I know how to do?
Every clinician has a default model and stretches it further than they should. A supervisor who will say plainly that you are bending a familiar method around an unsuitable case is more use than one who helps you do it better.
- 11
What would you do differently in the next session, specifically?
Ask for the actual intervention, not the principle behind it. Hold the boundary is not something you can do on Tuesday afternoon, whereas a sentence you could say when the client arrives twenty minutes late is.
- 12
Is this client outside my competence?
The question protects you and the client, and asking it early is far better than having it asked of you later. A good answer includes a route: refer on, add specialist consultation, or get training while continuing under closer supervision.
- 13
How would I know if this client is getting worse rather than just not better yet?
Deterioration is often noticed late because sessions feel busy and the alliance feels fine. Ask for concrete markers you could check against in four weeks, including any measures your service already collects.
- 14
What is my risk assessment missing here?
Read out what you actually wrote rather than describing it, because the gap is usually between what you know and what you documented. Ask specifically what a reviewer would say was absent if this file were read by someone else.
- 15
How would you have documented this session?
Documentation is rarely taught directly and mostly absorbed by accident. Asking what a senior clinician would include, and just as importantly what they would leave out, is a fast way to fix a habit that follows you for a career.
- 16
Do I have a dual relationship problem here, or am I being over-careful?
Overlapping communities, small towns, and online contact create situations that are easier to manage early and very hard to unwind later. Raising it while it is still hypothetical also demonstrates the judgement your evaluation is meant to assess.
- 17
What patterns do you see across my whole caseload?
This is one of the highest-value questions in supervision and one of the least asked, because case-by-case discussion hides themes. The answer tends to name a client type you consistently over-accommodate or avoid.
- 18
What am I doing well that I should keep doing on purpose?
Strengths get named vaguely and then forgotten. Asking for a specific behaviour rather than a compliment turns an instinct you happen to have into something you can deploy deliberately with the next difficult client.
- 19
If you had to write my evaluation today, what would you say is not yet ready for independent practice?
This brings the assessment into the open before it arrives in writing, and it gives you months to work on whatever is named. A supervisor who says nothing comes to mind is either not paying attention or not being straight with you.
- 20
Is there anything you have wanted to say to me that has not fitted into an hour?
Worth asking every few months rather than weekly. Supervisors hold back feedback that has no natural slot, particularly about how you come across, and this is the only invitation they are likely to get.
Using the supervision hour
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Preparing a case so it gets worked on
Preparing a case so it gets worked on
Lead with the question, not the history
Twenty minutes of background leaves ten minutes of thinking. Say what you want help with in one sentence, give the two or three facts that bear on it, and let your supervisor ask for the rest of the history if they need it.
Bring the moment, not the summary
A described session is already interpreted. Bringing what was actually said, in the order it was said, gives your supervisor access to the material rather than to your conclusions about it, which is where most useful observations come from.
Name your own reaction before you are asked
Saying that a client makes you anxious or that you dread the appointment is not a failure to report. It is usually the most reliable signal available about what happens to other people in this client's life, and withholding it removes the best data in the room.
Keep a running list between sessions
Questions arrive on a Wednesday afternoon and evaporate before Friday. A single note on your phone means the hour is spent on the things that actually troubled you rather than on whatever happened most recently.
Risk and ethics questions worth asking early
Risk and ethics questions worth asking early
- What are the reporting obligations in this jurisdiction, and who makes the call, you or me?
- What does our service expect me to do when a client discloses something about a third party?
- How do we handle a client who wants contact between sessions, and what is the boundary here?
- What is the policy on clients who find me online, or who ask personal questions?
- What happens to my caseload if I am ill or leave, and who tells the clients?
- If a complaint were made about a session, what in my notes would matter most?
When supervision is not working
When supervision is not working
- Sessions are cancelled often, cut short, or spent on service business rather than clinical work.
- You leave reassured every week but cannot name anything you do differently as a result.
- You find yourself editing what you present because you expect criticism rather than help.
- Feedback arrives only in the written evaluation and never in the room.
- Your supervisor works in a model you are not training in and offers no translation.
- You have raised a concern twice and nothing changed. At that point the question becomes who else in the organisation you can talk to, and what your professional body says about supervision arrangements.