The “visible invisible” live supervision: The impact of the supervisor’s participation on live supervision

Abstract

Live supervision (LS) is a special variety of (systemic) supervision which is not only efficient for providing quality supervision to the supervisees, but enables students/observers to experience directly live therapy and actively participate in many therapeutic processes during their practicum and internship. We present a qualitative analysis of 7 LS sessions after which 52 observers evaluated four dimensions of the supervisor’s participation: 1. activity-passivity, 2. non-verbal – verbal participation, 3. the use of the therapeutic space, and 4. the co-creation of the atmosphere. It was possible to summarize the positive evaluations with the concept of the "visible and invisible" way of the supervisor's cooperation. On this basis, recommendations are given for the use of the constructivist, solution-focused and narrative model of LS, for the systematic evaluation of live supervision and for further research of the LS process in the future.