Thank you for your interest in becoming a consultant and faculty member of the Supervision Training Program (STP) at The Psychotherapy Institute (TPI). The Consultant’s Selection Committee will review your materials and contact you with specific information about the interview. Interviews are held with two members of the committee and last for approximately 45 minutes.

The criteria for applying as a consultant are as follows:

• 4-5 years providing psychodynamic relational clinical supervision (depending on the number of supervisees and the context of the supervision);

• Familiarity with and commitment to providing depth psychotherapy, working with unconscious dynamics in clinical and supervisory work, recognizing and attending to parallel process in supervision, and engaging with issues of diversity and privilege;

• Experience working with a minimum of 4 supervisees with each supervisory relationship being a minimum of 9 months in duration;

• An interest in the teaching/learning process in supervision through one-to-one consultation with a focus on transference-countertransference aspects of the clinical and supervisory relationships;

• The ability and the willingness to be self-reflective and relatively comfortable examining inner experiences in a peer-group consultation setting;

• The willingness to participate in a monthly committee and faculty meeting (the 4th Wednesday evening of the month from 6:45 – 9:00 PM) in addition to weekly direct consultation;

• Maintaining annual membership with TPI.

Other aspects of the STP that consultant/faculty applicants should be aware of:

• The STP is a one-year training program in the theory and practice of psychodynamic relational supervision. The program combines readings and seminar instruction with weekly individual and monthly small-group consultation. Participants enrolled in the program may provide supervision to trainees and interns at local community agencies, including but not limited to TPI, and consultation to licensed therapists in the community through the Institute’s professional low-fee consultation services.

• The mission of the STP is to help participants develop a sense of personal authority as supervisors and teachers within the profession. Supervision is presented as a separate, intimate, and complex process, distinct from psychotherapy and requiring special attention and study.

• Participants in training receive individual consultation from senior clinicians who have closely studied and applied the supervision process. Participants also work in a small group with a group consultant, studying the literature and sharing supervisory experiences, to better understand the complex relationships between consultant and supervisor, supervisor and supervisee, and supervisee and patient.

• The individual and group consultants work as a team to facilitate the participants’ learning at a monthly peer-group consultation meeting. At this peer-group consultation, we discuss and explore the conscious and unconscious processes that surface between supervisees and consultants. We also use these meetings to discuss readings on supervision and to discuss relevant topics. We ask that new consultants attend a minimum of 3-6 months of meetings before being assigned an STP supervisor in order to become integrated into the program and familiar with the syllabus of readings. In addition, the individual consultant, group consultant, and STP supervisor meet at mid-year to set learning goals and discuss the STP participant’s learning and development as a supervisor and again at the end of the program. Written evaluations are completed by consultants and shared with their supervisees as part of this process.

If you are interested in becoming an STP consultant or have further questions, please contact the Director of Advanced Training Programs, Sandar Gaspar, at sgaspar@tpi-berkeley.org.