Supervision carries the same paradox as every relationship: the longing to be seen and the fear of what will happen if the truth is spoken. Both supervisor and supervisee arrive with intention, and both arrive with history.
A supervisor may offer guidance with care and presence, while the supervisee experiences something else entirely. Not because the supervisor doesn’t care, but because the moment is being filtered through a lifetime of relationships. Authority can feel supportive, or it can feel controlling. Structure can feel safe, or it can feel like suffocation. What’s happening in the room and what’s happening inside the supervisee may not match.
And sometimes, that mismatch becomes a pattern. A supervisee may find themselves experiencing more than one supervisor in the same way: too cold, too rigid, even “uncaring.” The conviction in that story is real—it feels true enough to speak with certainty. And when it’s spoken with certainty, others may believe it too. Their experience becomes the story, even for people who never lived it themselves.
Here’s the thing, though. When the same story keeps showing up with different people, it’s worth pausing. Not because it isn’t real—it is real in the nervous system. But repeating patterns usually point to something older. The question isn’t only, “Why are all these supervisors the same?” but also, “What is this experience echoing in me?” That’s not about blame. It’s about curiosity. Because what feels like a truth about them may also be revealing a truth about you. And that’s where supervision has its deepest potential—not in deciding who’s right, but in slowing down enough to notice what’s being replayed, and why.
Because what a supervisor cannot change is what they don’t know exists.
And what a supervisee cannot receive is care for a pain never spoken.
The invitation in supervision is not perfection. It is relationship. A willingness for both sides to stay with what is happening in the moment—even if it’s messy, even if it’s uncomfortable, even if the words come out sideways. A supervisee risking, “I don’t know if this is about you or about me, but something feels off.” A supervisor staying present, not to defend or explain, but to listen.
Supervision then becomes more than evaluation. It becomes a space of mutual growth, where the supervisee learns to bring their experience forward, and the supervisor learns how they are experienced. Both discover something they couldn’t have seen alone.
And maybe this is the deeper truth: the same dynamics that unfold in supervision will one day unfold in therapy. Clients will experience their therapists as invalidating, careless, unkind, or missing the mark. Intention and impact won’t always align there either. Which makes supervision not just training, but practice for the ongoing work of staying human together.
Awkward conversations aren’t mistakes in supervision. They are the work itself. And if all of that feels uncomfortable—good. It’s supposed to. Better to start practicing the awkwardness here than wait until a client is the one saying, “You don’t really care, do you?” Welcome to therapy life.
Embracing Shadows, Illuminating Hope,
Chelsey Fjeldheim, LCSW
Empowering Souls on the Path of Healing
Copyright © 2025 Chelsey Fjeldheim, Courage Speaks Counseling
