Why Culture, Safety and Fit Matter in Clinical Supervision and Therapist Growth
- Dr Tiffany Leung
- Sep 15
- 6 min read
When you begin training, supervision can feel like another requirement: hours to log, forms to complete, supervisors to find. But beyond the paperwork, what truly shapes your growth is not just that you attend supervision, but whether that space feels safe, culturally attuned, and a good personal fit.
Clinical Supervision is not just clinical oversight; it is a working alliance where you can reflect, sit with uncertainty, and find your professional voice. They shape your clinical competence, as well as your wellbeing and resilience as a practitioner.
The Supervisory Alliance
Supervision is often described through Bordin’s model of the working alliance:
Bond — trust and openness between supervisor and supervisee that allow honesty and risk-taking.
Goals — agreement on shared aims for learning and client care.
Tasks — the activities that move development forward.
When the alliance is strong, supervision becomes a place where you can bring mistakes, explore vulnerability, and think critically about your work. When the alliance is weak, supervision risks becoming too compliance-focused, even unsafe.
Good supervision pays attention to where you are in your stage of development. Early on, you may need more structure and guidance. Later, the balance often shifts toward reflective partnership (see Stoltenberg & McNeill’s IDM).
A common reflection question which reflective practitioners hold is: Do I feel that my supervision space is one where I can take risks, share mistakes, and be honest about my doubts?
How Safety and Fitness Make Supervision Work
Safety and fit are the lived experience of supervision.
Safety means you can bring clinical uncertainty, personal reactions/strong countertransference, or identity-related concerns without fear of judgment.
Fit means the supervisor’s approach and values align with your needs, whether that is more directive support at the start, or a reflective partnership as you grow.
Many trainees describe the difference between supervision that feels safe, and supervision that doesn’t. In a safe space, you can bring uncertainty, strong emotions, even identity-related struggles...and know you won’t be dismissed. In an unsafe space, you learn quickly to keep parts of yourself hidden.
Signals of safety and fit:
Difference is acknowledged without defensiveness.
Curiosity precedes evaluation in discussions.
You experience clear boundaries and relational warmth.
Feedback is specific, balanced, and tied to agreed goals.
There is room for exploring embodied experience (affect, regulation), not just talking through cases.
When considering supervision, you might ask yourself:
Do I feel able to bring up mistakes and identity-related concerns here?
Does the supervisor acknowledge difference, or avoid it?
Do I leave sessions feeling steadier and more thoughtful, or less so?
Safety and fit are crucial. But supervision is also shaped by another factor we sometimes overlook: culture.
Culture & Systemic Dynamics in Supervision
Therapy and supervision are never culturally neutral. You bring in your identity, history, languages, and values...and so does your supervisor. Following Sue & Sue (2016)'s book on Counselling the Culturally Diverse, cultural humility is not a credential to be achieved but an ongoing posture of learning. Helms & Cook (1999) also remind us that racial identity development shapes how we perceive and use power in relationships, including supervision.
How culture shows up in supervision:
Identity differences (race/ethnicity, migration, language, gender, sexuality, class, disability, faith).
Worldviews (how distress and healing are understood in families/communities).
Systemic pressures (assimilation expectations, microaggressions in teams, documentation norms that privilege one language or narrative style).
Migration stories (your own or your clients’) and the emotional labour they create.
When cultural difference is unacknowledged, it can create silence or discomfort. But when it is named and worked with, it can deepen learning and strengthen trust.
Intersectionality reminds us that we don’t come into supervision as one identity at a time. We bring the whole of ourselves, and our identities overlap in ways that shape how we are received. You may be navigating racism as well as class pressure, or migration stress alongside gender expectations. Bringing this whole picture into supervision is not always easy, but it can be profoundly grounding when it is welcomed.
Examples of questions you might bring into supervision:
“I noticed I hesitated to bring this identity-related concern. Can we make explicit how we will address culture and difference in our supervision contract?”
“When cultural dynamics show up in client work or team settings, how do you invite reflection?”
“I’d like to understand how you approach cultural issues in supervision. For example, how do you create space for conversations about identity or difference when they come up in client work?”
Naming Racism, Bias, and Migration Stressors
Organisations and teams have cultures. For many trainees, especially those from underrepresented or international backgrounds, supervision is also the place to process wider systemic stressors:
Experiences of racism or bias on placement, including subtle exclusion presenting in the “just the way we do things” form.
Pressure to assimilate into a dominant professional culture.
The weight of migration stories, whether that is your own, or those of your clients.
These realities can weight heavily on your clinical work. When experiences of racism or exclusion are dismissed or minimised, especially by a supervisor, it can feel silencing. A culturally responsive supervisor doesn’t avoid this reality. They help you find language for it (e.g. noticing, naming and navigating), and stand with you in working through its impact, whether they are practical strategies (e.g., language for raising concerns, allies to consult, documentation) or containment (sitting with the emotional toll, pacing change).
An important reflection about your use of clinical supervision: Would I feel able to bring an experience of racism or cultural misunderstanding into this supervision space? If not, what support do I need elsewhere?
Anti-oppressive stance in the room:
Name and process experiences of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and other biases that affect practice.
Explore the power dynamics within supervision itself (e.g., grading, gatekeeping).
Use an intersectional lens to consider how identities interact with organisational culture.
Attend to regulation, both yours and the supervisor's, so that difficult conversations can be held safely.
The Larger Implications of Supervision
When supervision holds culture, safety, and fit at its centre, something more than competence develops. We begin to cultivate the qualities that sustain a lifetime of practice: courage to stay present with what feels unbearable, humility to keep learning from difference, and steadiness to return again and again to the heart of our work.
This is why supervision is not simply an individual support but a contribution to the profession. Each safe conversation about bias, each moment of repair after rupture, each act of naming exclusion quietly reshapes what therapists carry into services, teams, and communities.
For trainees, this means discovering that their voice matters, even when uncertain. For supervisors, it means modelling that authority and openness can coexist. For clients, it means encountering therapists who are more human, more reflective, and more just in their care.
The ripple is systemic. Supervision that honours culture, safety, and fit not only protects our wellbeing; it strengthens the ethical fabric of the profession itself. It reminds us that growth in therapy is never just technical; it is always relational, cultural, and deeply human.
Whether you are beginning your training and looking for external clinical supervision, or you are already a qualified professional seeking a reflective supervisory space, you are warmly welcome to be in touch. I offer supervision that honours safety, cultural responsiveness, and fit; the foundations that support both growth and sustain us across a career.
🔗 Related Resources
Confidentiality & ethics note
This article is educational and does not replace your institution’s supervision policy, professional guidelines, or personal supervision/therapy.
References
Bordin, E. S. (1983). A working alliance based model of supervision. Counseling Psychologist.
Hawkins, P., & Shohet, R. (2012/2020). Supervision in the Helping Professions.
Stoltenberg, C., & McNeill, B. (2010). IDM Supervision: An Integrative Developmental Model.
Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the Culturally Diverse (7th ed.).
Helms, J. E., & Cook, D. A. (1999). Using Race and Culture in Counseling and Psychotherapy.
💡 Quick Reflection Questions for Trainees
Do I feel safe enough in supervision to bring mistakes or cultural differences?
What qualities of “fit” matter most to me in this relationship?
How do I want culture and identity to be acknowledged in my growth?
Why Culture, Safety and Fit Matter in Clinical Supervision and Therapist Growth
Why Culture, Safety and Fit Matter in Clinical Supervision and Therapist Growth
Comments