IJSP Number 5, 2023

30 in both what they have done with their client and in their plan for the next sessions with their client. Normalization: Our commitment to our supervisees is to provide our guidance, feedback, and professional challenge without devaluing them in any way. We strive to avoid pathologizing comments about the supervisee, their client, or the interactions between them by not using pejorative labels. We are sensitive to the possibility that supervision has the potential of being humiliating, so we watch for signs that our supervisee may be experiencing shame. It is common that supervisees fear being evaluated and judged and they may re-experience feelings of hurt, remnants of old school experiences that result in believing “something is wrong with me”. In the absence of sufficient validation, supervisees may hold themselves back from expressing what they are feeling and doing in their work with clients. Presence is a distinctive quality of interpersonal contact. It is evident in the supervisor’s tone on voice, eye contact, and attitude — the prosody of our communications. It conveys what Eric Berne called an “I’m OK — You’re OK” relationship [15]. Martin Buber [16] used the term “I-Though” to indicate that interpersonal communication can be sacred. Presence involves our commitment to the welfare of both the supervisee and their clients — being with and for them [18]. Question Three: “How would you develop the fourth level of the pyramid to empower the supervisee to have full interpersonal contact … what I call presence?” We demonstrate our respect for each supervisee by appreciating their uniqueness, and trust that our way of being-in-relationship with them, will provide a useful model of how to engage in interpersonal contact with their clients. We believe that no two therapists will ever do their psychotherapy in the same way because psychotherapy is an intersubjective encounter of two people meeting each other in an intimate relationship that is dedicated to the welfare of the client. Respect is the basis of each level in our Supervision Pyramid, and it is particularly significant at level four as we help the supervisee with a number of therapeutic tasks. Assessment of the gains: We may ask questions such as, “How are you a better psychotherapist because of what you have learned from your client?”; “How can you apply what you have learned when working with other clients?”. Assessment of the activity: Our goal at this level is to get the client to think “outside the box”. We may continue our supervision dialogue with questions such as, “What do you think is left undone and may need therapeutic attention in the future?”; or “With which type of clients would it be necessary to use a different therapeutic approach?”; or “When would it be more therapeutically advantageous to use another way of working?”. Assessment of the supervision from the supervisee’s perspective: “Which aspect of the supervision was of the most significance for you?”; "How do you feel now that you’ve been supervised?”. Erskine refers to the time of full interpersonal contact between client and therapist as a peak experience marked by maximum client vulnerability — a delicate vulnerability that empowers the client to change and grow (17). A similar intimate dynamic may also occur between supervisee and supervisor. As the supervisee reveals their vulnerability and the supervisor responds with authenticity