Didactic Supervision

Guidance for applicants and training providers on what would qualify as “didactic supervision” as provided for in IAHIP Bye Laws (2A, 2B, 2C, 2D & 2E).

Didactic Supervision is permitted in order to meet the European Association of Psychotherapy supervision requirements, with the agreement of ICP/EAP.

Didactic supervision, although not direct clinical supervision in the usual sense, is accepted as having supplementary supervisory value to those students already engaged in supervised clinical practice within their training course. When verified as such by the training course, IAHIP will count such hours, subject to any maximums specified in each Bye Law, as clinical supervision rather than counting them under any of the other training elements of the course.

As a result, any didactic supervision is additional to, and therefore distinguishable from, the required clinical supervision of a student’s clinical work undertaken during Phase 1 (core psychotherapy training). Formal clinical supervision must still be completed in accordance with the appropriate ratio specified in each Bye Law (1:4 or 1:8).

Furthermore, didactic supervision is confined to the support of students already approved to and engaged in supervised client work; it does not apply to any other part of their training or in preparation for starting client work.

Didactic supervision must not be provided by anyone who also leads a psychotherapy/process/supervision group containing the same individual/s.

What is meant by didactic supervision?

As the term suggests, didactic supervision is intended to include elements of theoretical learning and supervision within the training curriculum that have a direct bearing and an intended beneficial influence on the supervised client work of the students. This might include clinical seminars, or other training occasions, at which particular themes are addressed and at which the students are enabled to explore and present their own casework in relation to the theme under consideration. The training activity should have a clearly identifiable supervisory aspect in relation to the students’ direct experience in clinical practice. There should be a clear focus on developing the capacity to accurately link theory and practice.

Responsibility:

It is the responsibility of the training provider to decide what part(s), if any, of their training content qualifies as didactic supervision and to be willing to verify it as such, where appropriate, for graduates of theirs seeking IAHIP accreditation. Obviously, any hours of training classified as didactic supervision in an application for accreditation must not be included as well elsewhere in the application under any of the Theory and Group Learning headings set out in the Bye Laws.