PhD/PsyD Supervisors with BPD (or other personality disorders)?

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CheetahGirl

CheetahGirl

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Just curious, have any of you clinicians (or clinicians-in-training) ever worked with a supervisor who clearly has indications of a personality disorder, specifically BPD? Of course, I'm not this person's treating therapist, only his/her supervisee, so I can only state I have clear suspicions of BPD.

I know the topic of problematic supervisors has been addressed in past threads and my intention is not to turn this into commiseration thread (well...maybe it is). But I was curious if any others out there had personality disordered supervisors (specifically BPD) and if so, how did you handle the experience? Did you think it was wise to offer feedback on his/her style to help out the next victim...oops, supervisee? Or did you leave well-enough alone and let it die with the supervisory relationship.

Friends have said "you only have X days to work with him/her, suck it up" but interactions with this person unravel me and I can't focus afterward (because of the tone, underlying messages, attributions, insinuations that all occur during supervision). I repeatedly ask myself - how did this person ever come to supervise anyone?

Rant over. Thanks for reading... Would love to hear your comments and words of wisdom.
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My take--in this situation, I don't know (unfortunately) that there's much to be gained by directly confronting the issue with the supervisor. Personally, given how possibly toxic things sound and/or could quickly become, I might wait and let the DCT know in my exit interview. If what you say is true, and this is the only person giving you this type of feedback (while your other reviews are glowing), then your DCT will likely take what you say about this particular supervisor fairly seriously. And if it's as pervasive as it sounds, they've probably heard it from other folks before.
 
This is a fascinating post! Could you please give some examples of why you think this supervisor has indications of BPD? I'm just curious. Sounds like a really, really hard situation. Do you think you could switch supervisors? Have you reached out to your program? It seems like it's a real struggle for you (i.e., this person unravels you and you can't focus afterward) and at the end of the day you won't be able to get a letter of recommendation...I don't think you need to force yourself to "suck it up" I think you have the right to feel comfortable in your training environment. Good luck.
 
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I would caution against posting information that could potentially identify this person. Leave it vague. Once it gets into specifics, it gets dicey since it can be construed as a personal attack of sorts where the potentially identifiable professional has no recourse to answer. I empathize with your situation, but just tread lightly.
 
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Thank you, AA. I can hold off until the exit interview. That is great advice.

Childdoconeday, where do I begin? Unfortunately, I won't be able to extrapolate to specific examples here. Sorry. This is why I was directing this post to those who were clinicians because they may have a sense of what I am indicating without me needing to say it outright. My form of implicit communication over the web. :)

Yes, WisNeuro...I'm starting to feel paranoid and will most likely hit those "edit" buttons in a couple of hours to obscure what was previously noted. But thanks for your input....I'm reading you loud & clear.
 
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Not BPD, but my most recent supervisor was definitely narcissistic to a problematic level, if not a pathological one. I had veiled threats hurled at me constantly with the "I have tenure and you're nothing so I can do whatever I want" reasoning lodged behind it. The least shocking example I can provide is that they threatened to not only fire, but sue, me if I were to apply to PhD programs while working there. It sounds crazy now, but anyone who's learned the hard way that being incredibly smart and talented doesn't preclude an inclination to be a tad nutty knows that anyone with the right intellect and resources can make that sort of a silly threat seem very real. Also, without being able to list specifics, I will say that there were WAYYYY worse things happening in that situation, so something so small and silly easily went unquestioned.

As much as it felt counter-intuitive and like I was lacking morals for not doing so, I eventually realized that trying to provide feedback was just not going to work out and was causing me more agony than necessary. I felt the exact same way as you--I knew, if for no other reason than because of my stellar recommendations for the entirety of my academic and professional career, that I was a damn good at what I was doing. But thanks to this supervisor I constantly felt worthless and like I was on the brink of being let go for some nebulous reason. Same as you, every interaction unraveled me and, honestly, it wasn't until several months after leaving that lab that I realized just how badly this person messed with my mind and my assessment of my own abilities. I went in thinking I was going to get a wide range of amazing experiences and another awesome LoR behind me and I left with, essentially, nothing, after putting my career and life on hold for years.

But therein lies the main lesson I've learned, as cheesy as it is--try to find the positives, even if it's only the acquired ability to be able to deal with someone like that. As much as it sucks right now, you can either let it be an experience that permanently takes you down a notch when that's the farthest thing from what you deserve, or you can use it as a learning experience.

Also, what really helped me was talking with previous mentors and supervisors. Sometimes this can be difficult if they, too, know the person you're speaking about, but even if they do they can still provide reassurance of your abilities and put your mind at ease.
 
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horse.renoir said:
Not BPD, but my most recent supervisor was definitely narcissistic to a problematic level, if not a pathological one. I had veiled threats hurled at me constantly with the "I have tenure and you're nothing so I can do whatever I want" reasoning lodged behind it. The least shocking example I can provide is that they threatened to not only fire, but sue, me if I were to apply to PhD programs while working there. It sounds crazy now, but anyone who's learned the hard way that being incredibly smart and talented doesn't preclude an inclination to be a tad nutty knows that anyone with the right intellect and resources can make that sort of a silly threat seem very real. Also, without being able to list specifics, I will say that there were WAYYYY worse things happening in that situation, so something so small and silly easily went unquestioned.

As much as it felt counter-intuitive and like I was lacking morals for not doing so, I eventually realized that trying to provide feedback was just not going to work out and was causing me more agony than necessary. I felt the exact same way as you--I knew, if for no other reason than because of my stellar recommendations for the entirety of my academic and professional career, that I was a damn good at what I was doing. But thanks to this supervisor I constantly felt worthless and like I was on the brink of being let go for some nebulous reason. Same as you, every interaction unraveled me and, honestly, it wasn't until several months after leaving that lab that I realized just how badly this person messed with my mind and my assessment of my own abilities. I went in thinking I was going to get a wide range of amazing experiences and another awesome LoR behind me and I left with, essentially, nothing, after putting my career and life on hold for years.

But therein lies the main lesson I've learned, as cheesy as it is--try to find the positives, even if it's only the acquired ability to be able to deal with someone like that. As much as it sucks right now, you can either let it be an experience that permanently takes you down a notch when that's the farthest thing from what you deserve, or you can use it as a learning experience.

Also, what really helped me was talking with previous mentors and supervisors. Sometimes this can be difficult if they, too, know the person you're speaking about, but even if they do they can still provide reassurance of your abilities and put your mind at ease.
Click to expand...

This is completely unrelated, but may I say welcome to a fellow Roger Smith persona ;)
 
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Sadly, not a very rare occurrence.
 
This sort of supports the saying I've heard before that half the psychologists go into this type of work because they want to help people and the other half does because they have mental problems too.
 
I can commiserate, but I'm not sure I have any helpful suggestions. I had a supervisor at a site that seemed to have some kind of personality pathology. They even disclosed some past trauma that they had experienced as a child to me during one of our supervision sessions, and I felt this level disclosure was inappropriate given the context. A lot of trouble happened while this person was working at the clinic and all of their supervisees were impacted negatively. When someone tried to talk to the director about it, the person went to the director and got him to take their side. So they actually got the director to turn against us, even though we were all having problems. So nothing was done and we felt very dismissed and unprotected. It was a mess. Looking back, I think I wish I would have recognized the warning signs sooner. But I was a much more young and naive clinician at the time and one of this person's patterns was to get you feeling positively about them first. So awareness about what was going on (in order to not take things so personally and to not feel as if I were going crazy from what was happening), but also being careful to maintain good professional boundaries. It was always like trying to navigate a mine field with this person.
 
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PSYDR said:
@WisNeuro The elevated suicide rates of psychologists relative to the general population would seem to argue differently.
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I've never seen psychologists listed on the lists of highest professions by suicide.

That's a ridiculous thing to put forward as a premise anyway. By that logic, physicians and dentists are rife with mental illnesses.
 
I was referring to the pope and gilroy studies. While the studies don't control for a wide variety of factors, it would seem that there is a higher incidence of mental illness in psychologists than general population epidemiology studies.
 
I've read the pope and tabachnick stuff before, not entirely convincing. Granted, it's a hard subject to study. But, there is not much done to control for stress and issues related to the job (long hours, vicarious stress, etc) rather than it being a pre-existing condition. When you take that into account, most of the health professions look pretty similar in some of the reviews I have seen.
 
I was curious and had some time, so re-reviewed some of this stuff. The original Pope stuff was a mailed flyer with a mediocre return rate of mostly older clinicians, also largely dynamic or eclectic in nature. Raising a reporting bias. Some updated studies in this area (e.g, Phillips, 1999) found a different trend, and other older studies found lower rates. So, to say the research is definitive in this aspect, would be misleading. We can't even say the effect is there at all, much less whether it is due to pre-existing or peri-occupational factors.
 
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CheetahGirl said:
Just curious, have any of you clinicians (or clinicians-in-training) ever worked with a supervisor who clearly has indications of a personality disorder, specifically BPD? Of course, I'm not this person's treating therapist, only his/her supervisee, so I can only state I have clear suspicions of BPD.

I know the topic of problematic supervisors has been addressed in past threads and my intention is not to turn this into commiseration thread (well...maybe it is). But I was curious if any others out there had personality disordered supervisors (specifically BPD) and if so, how did you handle the experience? Did you think it was wise to offer feedback on his/her style to help out the next victim...oops, supervisee? Or did you leave well-enough alone and let it die with the supervisory relationship.

Friends have said "you only have X days to work with him/her, suck it up" but interactions with this person unravel me and I can't focus afterward (because of the tone, underlying messages, attributions, insinuations that all occur during supervision). I repeatedly ask myself - how did this person ever come to supervise anyone?

Rant over. Thanks for reading... Would love to hear your comments and words of wisdom.
Click to expand...

Regarding the craziness of folks in our helping profession, I believe that we see more extremes, that is, a lot of people with serious pathology (emotion dysregulation, Axis II stuff) as well as a lot of people with superior emotional maturity/development and plenty in-between. I wonder if there is any empirical research on this? Might be challenging given that we design/administer most tests of personality/psychopathology. Also, I'm not sure that we have as good a handle (construct validity-wise) on the 'opposite' of mental illness (resilience, virtues, etc.). I'm sure there's a dissertation or two out there somewhere on it :)

I know that I have encountered some 'crazies' as supervisors (only one seriously so) during my time but I have been fortunate to be within departments that were aware of the craziness and therefore able to insulate me, for the most part, from the consequences and/or to work with me (e.g., to change supervisors).
 
WisNeuro said:
Resilience is a murky concept. I wrote my master's thesis on it and have published on the problems with one widely used scale itself. Back in my trauma days :)
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Cool...I am not that familiar with the literature, really but it occurs to me that 'it' probably isn't some kind of unidimensional 'positive' end/half of a spectrum running from GAF = 5-ish all the way up to Mahatma Ghandi. I imagine looking at resilience in a research context is plenty complicated. Although the concept has utility in the clinical world (e.g., solution-focused approaches, identification of strengths to utilize in therapy, focus on gratitude...I know I just muddied the construct a lot, but I work with veterans and approaching things from a 'positive' valence seems useful for those in grim situations, especially when they (rightly or wrongly) are viewing their degree of control/influence as low). When I was working on an acute inpatient ward, I briefly used a 'hope' format for group based on a book by Shane Lopez that was research-informed at took a practical look at how do you (operationally) work to build a realistic sense of hope in bleak situations...seemed appropriate in that context.
 
The resilience literature is quite murky indeed. My dissertation has broken it down into separate categories as variables that are more researched in the literature: social support and coping style, since as a whole resilience isn't very well operationally defined let alone measured.

But back to the topic at hand, I've had a clearly diagnosable PD mentor, but my PD radar goes off immediately once I start to get "inner turmoil" and stomach aches whenever I have to meet with anyone on a PD spectrum. He had a propensity for turning students against each other, pulling us in (telling our cohort we were his favorite, taking us to dinner) and then abandoning us, not returning emails, reading manuscripts, etc. Either way, once my radar went off, I steered clear as best I could, found a new research advisor/supervisor when the 1 year requirement was up, and sought out other letters of recommendation and support from other faculty. That doesn't mean there wasn't alot of questioning and insecurity on my part, as people with PD tend to bring out the worst in everyone, solely my opinion. It was a struggle, but I am thankful to have overcomed such a frustrating supervisee-supervisor relationship.

So I definitely recommend finding outside support (peers, family, research, faculty) and knowing you aren't alone and that it (most likely) isn't you.
 
@WisNeuro , I agree that the research is somewhat mixed. I do disagree with your assertion that there is no elevation for mental illness in the professoin. Different reads from similar literature.

@MCParent if you don't think mental illness causes suicide.... well you and I are going to be fundamentally at odds.
 
The literature is contradictory, and the research making that claim has pretty significant limitations. I'm not necessarily saying that it isn't true, but that making a strong assertion based on available evidence is putting your footing on very shaky ground. Not too mention that someone could make just a strong of an argument on the other side of the position with other available data. If you want to stand by it, that's ok, but I don't believe it's a very empirically sound position to make.
 
WisNeuro said:
I was curious and had some time, so re-reviewed some of this stuff. The original Pope stuff was a mailed flyer with a mediocre return rate of mostly older clinicians, also largely dynamic or eclectic in nature. Raising a reporting bias. Some updated studies in this area (e.g, Phillips, 1999) found a different trend, and other older studies found lower rates. So, to say the research is definitive in this aspect, would be misleading. We can't even say the effect is there at all, much less whether it is due to pre-existing or peri-occupational factors.
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My first thought when seeing this is how did they interpret the non-responders? ;)

I also wanted to chime in my support for both MC and Wis by saying that this "research" of mental illness rates and suicide rates that is often cited is more like folklore than research. Especially when it comes to statistics for such a low base rate occurrence as suicide. The national rate is about 10 per 100,000 per year. Since there are only about 100,000 psychologists in the US, we would need a relatively high or low number of suicides over a long period to be able to make any type of interpretation of statistical significance. Nevertheless, a quick perusal of google (love the modern age) gave me an article that showed two suicides in 2008 and another in 2006 and 1987. Seems lower than the average to me. Statistical analysis notwithstanding.
 
I've seen some level of psychopathology in most of my professors and other faculty members... just about everyone in clinical psych. I mean, we're in this for a reason right?!
 
crazypsychstudent said:
I've seen some level of psychopathology in most of my professors and other faculty members... just about everyone in clinical psych. I mean, we're in this for a reason right?!
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And you are qualified to recognize this as non clinically trained undergraduate student, right?
 
crazypsychstudent said:
I've seen some level of psychopathology in most of my professors and other faculty members... just about everyone in clinical psych. I mean, we're in this for a reason right?!
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If you stretch out the spectrum far enough, *everyone* has some level of psychopathology. Whether its actually significantly impairing is a whole other matter.
 
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Yes, been there done that with the personality disordered supervisor. Not a full-time faculty member, she would just supervise certain cases/topics. I didn't really do anything to deal with it- the supervisor kind of repeatedly threw me under the bus and the faculty went with her side of the story. So I really had no choice at the time but to just take it lying down.

It made my life in the program difficult for quite some time, but eventually it became clear to the faculty that multiple students had issue with this person, and stories about her started circling around. The faculty eventually started to distance themselves from her, and she doesn't work with our program anymore. Can't deny that I feel pretty smug about it.
 
crazypsychstudent said:
I've seen some level of psychopathology in most of my professors and other faculty members... just about everyone in clinical psych. I mean, we're in this for a reason right?!
Click to expand...

I'd honestly be surprised if this truly were the case, as opposed to (as futureapppsy2 pointed out) various minor "characteristics of psychopathology." But even then, I don't know that I'd necessarily describe it as psychopathology unless it's actually causing impairment.

Have many (although I'd certainly not say most) of my supervisors had their own interesting eccentricities? Sure. Have the majority actually exhibited psychopathology? No.
 
crazypsychstudent said:
I've seen some level of psychopathology in most of my professors and other faculty members... just about everyone in clinical psych. I mean, we're in this for a reason right?!
Click to expand...
...because our rap careers are floundering and we need a new angle to secure adequate "street cred"?
 
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futureapppsy2 said:
If you stretch out the spectrum far enough, *everyone* has some level of psychopathology. Whether its actually significantly impairing is a whole other matter.
Click to expand...

Right on. If we were simply perfectly rational calculating biological machines (sans any irrationality/bias/unique perspective)...what would be the point? Self-replicating unconscious meat-Popsicle virus? We're all a little warped and, hey, without my own particular signature brand of crazy I doubt that I'd even be aware of my own existence...kinda like my own lil' existential shadow following me around :). Me and my crazy, joined at the hip.
 
Therapist4Chnge said:
...because our rap careers are floundering and we need a new angle to secure adequate "street cred"?
Click to expand...
At least three different faculty in my undergrad departments (psychology and social work) got their PhDs because their bands didn't take off, so you may have something there... ;)
 
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erg923 said:
And you are qualified to recognize this as non clinically trained undergraduate student, right?
Click to expand...

“How's your Intro to Psychology class going, Haley?”

“It's only day three, but I understand the whole world now.”
 
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There we go.

Sorry, I am not a fan of people just talking smack about research without offering differing citations. It is much easier, and a lot more sloppy.
 
That conflicting citation is still besides the point that research that is out there is deeply flawed and I would not make strong assertions on either side of the debate. To do so would show a great misunderstanding of research methodology.
 
I would think that accepting the null hypothesis in the presence of supporting evidence (in the absence of conflicting evidence) shows a great misunderstanding of research methodology.
 
Using null hypothesis testing in general shows a great misunderstanding of research methodology. Most statisticians agree that it is a terrible way to conduct research, and some journals ban its practice. Rather, before making strong assertions based on research, one should first evaluate the strength of that evidence. In this case, the evidence that was present, was fairly weak.
 
I state an opinion. I offer supporting evidence. You say it is weak, and say there is no difference. You offer no supporting evidence for your position until specifically asked.

But my understanding of research is weak. Neat.
 
PSYDR said:
I state an opinion. I offer supporting evidence. You say it is weak, and say there is no difference. You offer no supporting evidence for your position until specifically asked.

But my understanding of research is weak. Neat.
Click to expand...
It seems to me that logic and some evidence points to someone who can attain a doctorate as being higher functioning than the average person. Of course there is no research to show this because no one cares. People love to think of us as being "crazy" because of he irony so any study that points to that becomes immediately popular. It's like the dog bites man is not a story but man bites dog will be on front page.
 
This topic hits me right in the feels. Distinctly remember my worst supervisory experience. Pretty sure the supervisor had cluster B PD. I remember walking into this supervisor's office never knowing what I was going to get. One day I was doing well and the next day I basically cannot do anything right. At one point, this supervisor accused me of being unethical even when I had hard evidence to support me. Even accused me of being complacent on our first supervisory session before I even started seeing clients. It was a year of hell!
 
About 5-6 years ago, our program made a terrible decision IMO. At that time, I think I was a 2nd year phd student. They hired a woman who had run her own private practice into the ground to be the clinic director. I met with it and it was pretty clear she was not remotely qualified to be the clinic director. I was one of the first to work for her, and subsequently every student I've talked to "just wants to get away" from this supervisor. Now several years removed, it's almost comical in how painful of an experience it was. I'd guess OCPD. Terrible boundaries. Very rigid. Always overwhelmed and trying to put everything in order all the time. Changed her mind daily about how she wanted clinic materials organized. Would make people (mostly after me, this didnt effect me too much) change how they were doing everything from client tracking to voicemails to billing 3,4,5 different ways. Would often read emails over people's shoulders, and I twice had to explain to her that doing such things was inappropriate. Once she asked me to open my personal email and search for something (I forgot what it was, but it was only semi-related to the clinic).

Anyways, the good (albeit very anecdotal) news is that perhaps those of you with a difficult time with a terrible supervisor can take solace in knowing that since, I've only come across one other person who is remotely as incompetent as that person. So once you make it through school, the odds of coming across people like that are relatively minimal. IMO, it takes more skill to function outside academia, and people are less tolerant of incompetence and eccentricity in "the real world".
 
I have only dealt with this indirectly as my current supervisor's division head clearly has BPD (how she was able to secure that title is a mystery to 95% of the staff at the hospital). Because it has spilled over into my ability to attend hospital didactics and issues with my security clearance we've discussed it in supervision in terms of "if this happens to you in the future this is how you deal with a supervisor who is nuts" and my attitude has been to seek employment elsewhere because it is just not worth it. However, the takeaway message from our sessions has been to keep things as business-like, straight forward, and lacking of emotion as possible to avoid any kind of non-professional relationship then seek additional supervision, nip conflicts immediately in the bud to avoid major blowouts later on, and consult HR when necessary.
 
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