PhD/PsyD Internship supervisors in a relationship

[drlauren032]

I have an ethical situation that I'm surprised I haven't been able to find an information on how to deal with yet.

During the middle of my internship year, the primary supervisors ended up leaving the clinic and two new supervisors were hired on. It quickly became very apparent that these two supervisors were forming a very close relationship and had moved in together. I and the other interns were already experiencing problems in supervision such as feeling that we were being given conflicting information on what was expected in regards to our clinical work, presentations, reports, etc between the two supervisors. We also felt that our experiences in supervision had been uncharacteristically critical compared to feedback we received from previous supervisors. When we tried to clarify information with supervisors or bring up the fact we were getting different instructions, they would get defensive and put the blame on us for not understanding. During times where we would present articles often the supervisors would laugh or make jokes to each other and then at the end of the presentation criticize our choice of article. It was awful.

This year I am still with the same agency licensed as a psychologist but work independently primarily in a different department but still have interactions with the interns. The interns have already expressed to me similar difficulties they are currently having with the supervisors. I am concerned about the new interns and the lack of upfront disclosure on the part of the supervisors about their relationship and how it may impact their ability to provide non-biased evaluations and accept negative feedback regarding the other. I don't see anything clearly written in the ethics code about the ethics of providing supervision and evaluations when supervisors are in a relationship. I would like to bring up my concerns about the problematic nature of the current supervision structure to our administrative supervisor, but not sure the best way to go about it. I think it may be helpful to have another intern supervisor, such as myself, to have partial supervision/evaluation responsibilities so there would be a more neutral party and it may provide more safety for interns to bring up issues to.

Does anyone have any knowledge of the ethics of supervisors being in a relationship as well as advice for how to help the new interns now?

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[WisNeuro]

There is no ethical dilemma concerning this issue in that coworkers are in a relationship per se according to our ethics code, as long as neither has any authority over the other. So, I would leave any feedback about that out of my concerns, unless there is more info that we don't have here.

However, providing inadequate, or poor supervision could be an issue. If this is the issue, I would talk with the training director about those issues. Keep it objective.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Also, the supervisors have no obligation to disclose their relationship as you describe it since there is no ethical issue at play. I'm more of an open book in my approach to disclosures about stuff like that, but thats me. If you go to talk about supervision, talk about your experience, not how you perceive the experience of others to be.

For what its worth, it seems as though you are wanting to be invested in this situation with the new interns beyond what you need to be given your role. That just seems to be asking for trouble at the site and the reason why doesn't seem apparent to me. I get that there was what you perceive as a bad situation during your internship, but why are you trying to fix it now that you are no longer at the site for the sake of others/the new interns rather than addressing it while you were there?

 

[drlauren032]

Thank you, that is helpful. Poor supervision was definitely part of the issue, however there was no safe way to address this as both supervisors were defensive of the other and both engaging in poor supervision behaviors. Unfortunately, the training director is one of the above mentioned supervisors, and when I initially brought my concerns to her attention (while I was still an intern), it was minimized and they had not yet admitted to the fact they were in a relationship. Our administrative supervisor is her direct superior, and so that is why I am considering going to him at this point to bring up my concerns.

It is still surprising to me that there is nothing written about supervisors in a relationship because I think it significantly decreases a student's safety in sharing concerns and can lead to more bias in overall evaluation of the student.

 

[drlauren032]

Also, the supervisors have no obligation to disclose their relationship as you describe it since there is no ethical issue at play. I'm more of an open book in my approach to disclosures about stuff like that, but thats me. If you go to talk about supervision, talk about your experience, not how you perceive the experience of others to be.

For what its worth, it seems as though you are wanting to be invested in this situation with the new interns beyond what you need to be given your role. That just seems to be asking for trouble at the site and the reason why doesn't seem apparent to me. I get that there was what you perceive as a bad situation during your internship, but why are you trying to fix it now that you are no longer at the site for the sake of others/the new interns rather than addressing it while you were there?

I still have ongoing interactions with the interns/internship programs during our interdepartmental meetings, outreach events, case consultations, and I am involved in presenting their didactic trainings. From my interactions with the new interns, they have disclosed similar concerns to me. Like I said, I did try to bring the concerns regarding my experience to the supervisors while I was an intern, however this was met with defensiveness and criticism. I didn't know who else to go to at the time that would have an unbiased perspective and did not want to jeopardize my ability to graduate the program as these supervisors had the final say on whether I would pass the internship and obtain my degree. That was an ethical dilemma in itself.

 

[WisNeuro]

It is still surprising to me that there is nothing written about supervisors in a relationship because I think it significantly decreases a student's safety in sharing concerns and can lead to more bias in overall evaluation of the student.

It shouldn't be surprising. The workplace is one of the primary places people meet significant others. If anything, it'd be unethical to put restrictions on who you can and cannot date as long as there is no issue about power differentials. And, problems with supervision itself is already subsumed under different codes and guidelines. There are avenues to take for ethical violations. 1.) make sure it's actually an ethical violation. What code is actually in question. 2.) Try to engage in informal resolution with the offending party (as long as patient safety is not compromised, in which case, you need to go higher). 3) If that doesn't do it, go to a supervisor of the offending party. 4) if that doesn't do it, you can approach the state board. If you go to the board, make sure you have a case. Making frivolous complaints is a violation in itself for many states.

 

[erg923]

I agree with the above. The issue here is poor supervision and perhaps poor training program administration. The factors responsible for this may be the relationship between the 2 supervisors, but that level of speculation is a bit above your pay grade to be investigating and exposing (so to speak), because unto itself, it is a non-issue.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Completely agree with other posters on this. Whether bad supervisors are in a relationship with each other or not is probably irrelevant. Also, poor supervision is not necessarily unethical. One place I worked at had two coworkers have an affair as one was married. It didn’t become unethical until one of the parties confided this to a patient. At that point the one who did this was fired. The other who was cheating on their spouse was not. Poor judgement and poor work performance is something to target for improvement, whereas an ethical violation that could conceivably cause harm to patient is a more serious matter.

 

[temppsych123]

Totally agree - bad/limited supervision seems to be the key problem, which might be mediated by the fact that the supervisors are in a relationship, but ultimately, you care about changing the supervision situation, not the relationship situation. I think the extent to which you can get feedback, support, and guidance from other people at the site who are not the two primary supervisors will be important; it sounds like you've tried to bring up the issues with these supervisors directly, and it's not working. (As an aside, this is why I think it's super important for interns to have multiple supervisors in different settings over the year, to be able to get outside perspectives and support on things like this).

I do think that, unfortunately, if you're in a setting where there are very few people in charge of what might be a relatively small internship program, it can be hard to get people involved in these situations to actually recognize the problem and do something about it. The current interns would have the option to file a complaint with APA (assuming the internship is accredited) if they feel that the supervision is grossly below what is necessary to provide appropriate training and patient care, but that's a pretty big step, and it might be hard to demonstrate in a concrete way the harm that's being done. I think it's valuable that you are trying to look out for the current interns, but I also think that, at some point, you may be in a situation where your hands are tied, and the internship program will ultimately bear the consequences of the supervision problem (e.g. current interns will communicate to potential future interns about problems at the site, people rank the site less highly, spots go unfilled, people notice there are problems, APA notices problems when they do site visits, etc.).