Suzie Savvidou on Understanding Supervisory "Games"

Supervision is an ongoing, dynamic process that may – among others – elicit feelings of insecurity and threat, like almost any other kind of relationship. The supervisory relationship can trigger feelings of anxiety for both the supervisor and the supervisee. Such situation may raise the initiation of various ‘games’, displayed by either or both sides.

Games played by the supervisee:

• Protect me/treat me: students play this game to excuse lack of performance due to personal issues. Supervisors with a difficulty to accept their ‘authority’ become more vulnerable to this game.
• Evaluations are not for friends: this is a game focusing on the supervisor’s difficulty to make negative criticism within a friendly relationship. The student notices this difficulty and relies on it, knowing that negative criticism from the supervisor will be less likely due to this ‘friendship’.
• Head it off at the pass: the supervisee raises ‘crisis issues’ to avoid dealing with ongoing real issues.
• What you don’t know, won’t hurt me: students feelings of insecurity because they are afraid that the supervisor will see them as incompetent. Thus, a student may present him/herself as confident, fearing that disclosure of their insecurity will lead to undesirable decisions by the supervisor.

Games played by the supervisors:

• They won’t let me: the supervisor blames others in the working environment for not acting on the supervisee’s request.
• I am really one of you: the supervisor displays a positive attitude to all complaints against the programme, Department, institution etc, not acknowledging they are part of it.
• Remember who is the boss: the supervisor does not allow any challenges or few decisions to be made by the supervisee.

Strategies for improving the supervisory process

There are several strategies to use for balancing the power and minimizing games by both sides:

• Self reflection: is about identifying the impact that your power has on the supervisees performance. Ask yourself what the student is telling you with their behavior that they cannot say verbally.
• Clarify expectations: ask from the supervisees to describe what they think is expected from them and what they expect from you, so that unrealistic expectations are identified and handled. Many students say, for instance, that they expect from their supervisor to run the statistical analyses of their project or to tell them what analyses they need to run.
• It's their own project: try to make students understand that this is their project and not yours. Decisions should be taken by them; you are there to steer the pathway.
• Address feelings of students being incompetent or not having the appropriate resources: Suggesting another kind of analysis of their data, for instance, may not be what the student would like to do, if they felt that it is beyond their capability or knowledge
• Make ‘contracts’ with the supervisee as they proceed with their project, but check regularly whether the initial contract leads to the desirable outcome and if not, adjust the contract accordingly during the supervision process. Such contracts may include, for example, when in need, can they call you at your mobile or not? Can they email you and expect you to reply immediately?
• Use ‘learning diagnosis’ including ways how your supervisees seem to learn best: this is crucial because of diverse learning abilities and ways to learn. For example, would it be better to give an outline before they do the task or to develop and outline after starting the task? Would bottom-up or top-down report writing suits them best?
• Practice constructive confrontation: you might want to address behaviours that need to change, clarifying concerns openly etc. For instance, procrastination due to lack of confidence.

The dynamics that are created in a supervisory relationship can affect both the supervisee and the supervisor, sometimes in a positive and some other times in a negative way. There is always some ‘power’ that can be used by both sides. If this power is well balanced and both parties are self-reflective and self-aware of strong and weak issues that need further work, a good positive atmosphere can be created and it can make the whole process rewarding for both parties.

Suzie Savvidou
Department of Psychology