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Multicultural Orientation in Clinical Supervision

Clinical supervision, considered the “signature pedagogy” of mental health training (Bernard & Goodyear, 2013), is an important competency and has far-reaching effects for both trainees and clients. Much has been written about the importance of culturally competent clinical supervision; however, although multicultural orientation may better capture cultural components necessary for clinical supervision, no empirical study of multicultural orientation in clinical supervision had yet been undertaken. Thus, our study is the first empirical study of MCO in clinical supervision. In a sample of 123 therapist trainees, preliminary results suggested that cultural humility was related to the supervisory working alliance, trainee disclosure, and supervisory satisfaction, and accounted for the most variance. We further found that cultural comfort and cultural missed opportunities were also related to the supervisory working alliance. Although these results are preliminary, they provide the first empirical support for the importance of MCO in clinical supervision.