ABSTRACT

Frame alterations modify the nature of a supervisor's and supervisee's communications because the emotion-processing mind is compelled to adapt communicatively to the stressful aspects of the frame impingement. Even when a supervisor is not keyed into deep encoded meaning, disguised messages are generated by the disturbed supervisee, and they will exert negative effects on both parties to the supervision. Unconscious validation of supervisory interventions is sought primarily from the subsequent material from the supervised patient. For example, a supervisee may, following a supervisor's intervention, think of someone who is perceptive or brilliant, or supportive or wise, thereby encoding the accuracy and helpfulness of the supervisor's comment — a form of interpersonal validation. The policy of the supervisee presenting from notes written after the session is the main exception to this unencumbered unfolding. The dictum that the supervisee should present the process-note material in the sequence in which the material unfolded has a number of important ramifications.