Supervisory style match and psychotherapy trainee effectiveness in China.

Abstract

This study focuses on two objectives: revising and validating the Supervisory Style Inventory (SSI; Friedlander & Ward, 1984) for use in China, and examining how supervisory style match predicts trainee clinical performance manifested by their client symptom outcomes. Participants included 173 beginning therapist trainees who saw 1,916 clients under the supervision of 73 supervisors in a Chinese mental health counseling training program. Clients completed measures of their symptom distress before every session; trainees completed the SSI for their expected supervisory style at the beginning of practicum and their perceived actual supervisory style at the end of the practicum; supervisors completed the SSI at the beginning of practicum to report their self-rated supervisory style. Results show that (a) factor analysis reduced the 33-item SSI to 21 items with two subscales: Task-Focused and Organized (TFO) and Relationship-Focused and Supportive (RFS). This structure demonstrated measurement invariance across trainee and supervisor versions. (b) Trainee-perceived RFS scores significantly predicted greater client symptom improvement, while supervisor-self-rated RFS scores negatively correlated with client outcomes. No significant effects were found for TFO scores. (c) Regarding supervisory style match, greater mismatch between trainee-expected and supervisor-self-rated styles predicted poorer client outcomes. Mismatches between trainee-expected and trainee-perceived or trainee-perceived and supervisor-self-rated styles did not significantly predict client outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).