IJSP Number 5, 2023

21 APPLYING THE PYRAMID OF SUPERVISION TO CONCEPTS OF RELATIONALLY-FOCUSED INTEGRATIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY VÎŞCU Loredana-Ileana 1 , WATKINS Jr. C. Edward 2 , ERSKINE Richard G 3 . 1 European Association of Integrative Psychotherapy (EAIP); The Institute of Psychotherapy, Psychological Counselling and Clinical Supervision (IPCS); “Tibiscus” University of Timisoara, Romania; 2 Professor of Psychology, University of North Texas, and Trainer, Institute of Psychotherapy, Psychological Counselling and Clinical Supervision 3 Richard G. Erskine, Instituter for Integrative Psychotherapy; Professor of Psychology and Education, Faculty of Health Sciences, Deusto University, Bilbao, Spain Emails : loredana.viscu@gmail.com, watkinsc@unt.edu, info@IntegrativeTherapy.com Abstract The Supervision Pyramid provides an effective supervision tool that attends to the supervisee, the client, and the supervisor. It is divided into four levels: identifying the problem; exploring and elaborating on what is learned; experimentation and consolidation; and solving the problem with the goal of the supervisee’s increased capacity to identify solutions and to embrace professional challenges. This article proposes that the core factors of psychotherapy supervision are accomplished through the incorporation of Erskine’s “Keyhole Model”, which spotlights the significance of eight relational needs; the importance of the psychotherapist’s inquiry, attunement, and involvement; the effective use of acknowledgement, validation, normalization and presence; as well as a necessary sensitivity to the client’s nascent affects, rhythm, style of cognition, and level of development.. Key words: psychotherapy supervision, Supervision Pyramid, relational psychotherapy, Integrative Psychotherapy, relational needs, attunement, presence. 1. INTRODUCTION This article is the fruit of a three-person professional dialogue about the Supervision Pyramid and how it might be integrated with and even enhanced by concepts from Relationally-focused Integrative Psychotherapy. We will specifically focus on Richard Erskine’s Keyhole Model since it provides a representation of the various therapeutic principles used in a relationally-focused psychotherapy. The conversation about the concepts and methods of relationally-focused integrative psychotherapy and how they could be unified with the supervision pyramid occurred between Loredana Vîşcu, Richard Erskine, and Edward Watkins in early 2023. The Keyhole Model [1, 2] is a synthesis of the therapeutic principles used in an integrative psychotherapy that emphasizes the centrality of a contactful therapeutic