IJSP Number 6, 2024

54 oriented behaviour and increase the supervisor-therapist relationship-oriented behaviour. This is until the therapist reaches a certain level of experience. When the therapist starts to reach the higher level of experience, the reduction of both the psychotherapy outcome-oriented behaviour and the supervisor-therapist relationship-oriented behaviour is indicated. The therapist becomes "mature" (high level of experience towards the maximum) not only from the performance point of view but also from the psychological point of view. Since the therapists can self-evaluate and self-appreciate themselves, a lot of socio-emotional support from the supervisor is no longer needed. At this level of experience (maturity) the supervised therapists will perceive the reduction in supervision but will accept it as a positive indication of trust. The situational supervision theory focuses on the suitability of the supervision style to experience/maturity in relation to the psychotherapeutic outcome/task of the therapist. This cycle is illustrated by a bell curve superimposed over the four quadrants of supervision - Figure 1. The figure shows the connection between experience/maturity in relation to the task and the supervisory style used when the psychotherapist passes from lower to higher experience/maturity. The overlapping of two different phenomena should be noted: • The appropriate supervision style (the style of the supervisor) for given levels of the therapist’s experience/maturity is illustrated as a curvilinear function in the four quadrants. • The experience/maturity level of the therapist is represented in the form of the supervision model as a continuum from immature to mature. Regarding the supervision styles presented in the figure, the following abbreviations have been used: (1) the behaviour with a high emphasis on the psychotherapeutic tasks/outcomes and low emphasis on the supervisor-therapist relationship is referred to as S1 supervision behaviour (2) the behaviour with a high emphasis on both the psychotherapeutic tasks/outcomes and the supervisor-therapist relationship is identified as S2 supervision behaviour (3) the behaviour with a high emphasis on the supervisor-therapist relationship and low emphasis on the psychotherapeutic tasks/outcomes is identified as S3 supervision behaviour (4) the behaviour with low emphasis on both the supervisor-therapist relationship and the psychotherapeutic tasks/outcomes is identified as S4 supervision behaviour.