Nancy McWilliams
Psychotherapy Supervision:
Longstanding Controversies and Current Dilemmas
Date: Friday December 4th, 1pm-4pm
Location: In-person only @ Center for Psychotherapy
615 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Cost: $200
Continuing Education: 3 units (Meets Supervisor CE Requirements)
This continuing education seminar is intended for licensed therapists who are currently engaged in clinical supervision. It is limited to 20 participants.
Seminar Description
National organizations of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers have
advocated specific courses in supervision for trainees in their respective clinical disciplines.
They have tended to frame supervision in terms of specific competencies or progressive skill sets, often measured via symptom reduction in the supervisee’s clients. They have also
emphasized the importance of adapting supervision, like treatment, to areas of diversity. But there has been less attention to general developmental goals such as the supervisee’s overall professional and personal growth, and to areas of maturation that constitute progress in both therapist and patient. This talk contextualizes clinical supervision historically, exploring some less frequently measured areas of supervisory competence.
Learning Objectives
After this workshop, participants will be able to:
1. Articulate three tensions or controversies that recur periodically in professional writing
about clinical supervision
2. Describe ten areas of overall mental health relevant to supervision;
3. Define two ways of dealing with the possible implications of differences between
supervisor and supervisee in areas such as culture, ethnicity, race, age, gender and gender
identity, sexual orientation, religion, class, ability, and similar potential diversities;
4. Increase the mutual comfort and effectiveness of participants in any supervisory or
consultation situation.
Nancy McWilliams is Visiting Professor Emerita at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology and practices in Lambertville, New Jersey. She is author of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (1994, rev. ed. 2011), Psychoanalytic Case Formulation (1999), Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2004), and Psychoanalytic Supervision (2021) and is associate editor of all three editions of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (2006, 2017, 2026). A former president of Division 39 (Psychoanalysis) of the American Psychological Association, she has been featured in three APA videos of master clinicians. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA. Her books are available in 20 languages, and she has taught in person or remotely in more than 50 countries.

