Nobody Warned Me My Supervisor Would Be the Hardest Part of This Job

You survived grad school, licensing hell, and your first caseload. Nobody warned you about the person holding your hours.

✍ Dr. Monika Diaz, PhD 📖 5 min read 🧠 Perkins PsyCare

Let Me Set the Scene

You're in supervision. You've been working your tail off — late nights, difficult cases, a caseload that would make anyone spiral. You say something confident. Maybe you push back. Maybe you ask a direct question.

And then your supervisor looks at you and says something like this:

"It's almost like you think we're peers. Like we're colleagues. Like we're on the same level — and we are not even close. I'm the supervisor. You're the trainee."

Heart. Stomach. Floor.

In one sentence, you go from a developing professional to someone who just got put in their place. And the worst part? You still need their signature.

I know that moment because I lived it. And if you're in behavioral health, there's a good chance you have too.

The Field Is Already on Its Knees

Behavioral health isn't in a slow decline. It's in a right-now, people-are-leaving-and-not-coming-back crisis.

93%

of behavioral health workers report experiencing burnout

54%

of graduates leave before ever becoming licensed

More than half of the people who enter this field never make it to licensure. Annual turnover runs three to six times higher than any healthy organization's benchmark. We keep recruiting people into a pipeline that's leaking — and the leak starts at supervision.

Where It Actually Comes From

Here's what nobody teaches in supervision training: many toxic supervisors aren't evil. They're unhealed.

They had a supervisor who humiliated them, weaponized the power differential, withheld information to stay needed. And instead of breaking that cycle, they passed it down. It's the oldest pattern in psychology — happening inside the very institutions that are supposed to know better.

"It was done to me, so I do it to you."

That's not leadership. That's unprocessed experience wearing a credential. Research published in The Clinical Supervisor described harmful supervision as an "unacknowledged truth" — all too common, and largely ignored because looking at it means admitting that people we trusted to grow the next generation have sometimes been the reason that generation quit.

Signs You Are Not Ready to Supervise Anyone

This isn't an attack. It's a mirror. Because the first step to breaking a cycle is being willing to see yourself in it.

1
You took the role for the title, not the teaching.
If your first thought was the status bump and not "how do I actually develop someone" — that's the opportunity-ego mentality. The supervisee can feel it from day one.
2
You announce your rank when you feel challenged.
Secure supervisors don't need to remind people of the hierarchy. If a trainee asking a sharp question makes you feel threatened, that's not a trainee problem.
3
You've never reflected on your own supervision wounds.
If you can't name one thing a past supervisor did that hurt your development, you haven't done the work. And you will repeat it — guaranteed.
4
Feedback only flows one direction: down.
Exceptional supervisors invite evaluation of themselves. If the idea of your supervisee rating your performance makes you squirm, sit with that.
5
You expect perfection and punish mistakes instead of teaching through them.
Nobody told you that you were less than perfect either — and look how that landed. When a trainee makes an error, that's the whole point of supervision. Your job is to develop them, not audit them. If every mistake becomes evidence of their inadequacy, you're not supervising. You're recreating the wound.

What the Research Confirms

This isn't soft feelings — it has hard consequences. A 2023 study found that harmful supervisors routinely abused power differentials, withheld information, held unreasonable expectations, and left trainees feeling unsupported and professionally stunted. And the damage reaches clients. When trainees are anxious and walking on eggshells, they can't do their best clinical work. Harmful supervision doesn't just hurt the trainee — it walks into the therapy room with them.

In a field already carrying secondary trauma as a job description, an abusive supervisor isn't just a bad experience. It's an ethical violation of the profession you swore to uphold.

And the Ones Who Watched and Said Nothing

Let's talk about the other supervisor in the room. The one who knew. The one who heard the comment, saw the dynamic, watched a talented trainee shrink — and did absolutely nothing.

In psychology we know this: silence is not neutrality. Silence is acceptance. When a colleague behaves harmfully and the people around them stay quiet, that silence communicates to the trainee that this is normal, that this is what the field is, that they should absorb it and move on.

The bystander supervisor is just as responsible for the decline of this field as the one causing the harm. Because they had the credential, the standing, and the access to intervene — and they chose their comfort over someone's career.

It takes one person to say "that's not how we treat trainees here." One. And the fact that so few do tells us this isn't just an individual problem. It's a cultural one. A field that tolerates harmful supervision at every level — in the room, in the hallway, in the meeting where nobody raises the issue — is a field that has quietly decided new talent is expendable.

They are not.

A Conversation Worth Having With Every State Board

This isn't about pointing fingers at regulators. It's about asking a genuinely important question: how easy is it, right now, to become a clinical supervisor in your state? And is that bar actually serving the field — or just clearing it?

Research consistently shows that clinical excellence and supervisory competence are two entirely different skill sets. Being a great therapist does not automatically make someone equipped to develop other therapists. Yet in most states, the pathway to supervision requires little more than licensure and time. No demonstrated leadership ability. No training in giving developmental feedback. No reflection on one's own supervisory history.

A few evidence-informed ideas worth putting on the table:

→
Consider tiered supervisor credentialing.
Some certifying bodies are already piloting this. Rather than a single approval, supervisors progress through demonstrated competency stages — with training requirements, not just hour requirements.
→
Invest in supervisor development, not just oversight.
Regulation without support just creates more gatekeeping. What the field needs is funded, accessible training that helps good clinicians become good supervisors — mentorship for the mentors.
→
Create protected feedback channels for trainees.
Anonymous, structured ways for supervisees to report on supervisory quality — not just misconduct — would give boards real data on what's actually happening in these relationships.
→
Build the pipeline, don't just protect the gate.
The shortage of qualified supervisors is real. Residency-style supervision tracks, stipends for supervisor training, and mentorship programs for emerging supervisors would start closing the gap — without sacrificing the people coming up behind them.

The goal isn't more bureaucracy. It's a field that actually takes care of the people it asks to take care of everyone else.

We Specialize in Workplace Burnout

If This Hit Close to Home

Whether you're a trainee who's been there, a clinician running on fumes, or a supervisor ready to lead differently — we see you. Workplace burnout in behavioral health is one of our specialties at Perkins PsyCare.

Let's Talk →

Dr. Monika Diaz, PhD

Licensed Psychologist · Perkins PsyCare · Workplace Burnout Specialist

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