Session Description
RCT suggests that if a relationship is growth-fostering for one of the people in the relationship it must be growth fostering for both people. While supervisory relationships are constructed to foster the growth of the student, mutual learning also occurs in these settings. People are more able to be authentic in relationships when they can learn without fear or shame. In supervision, a critical process is to manage the power differential in a way that helps the trainee bring more and more of her/himself into the relationship. In order to facilitate this movement, we need to interrupt the fear-based idealizations (relational images) that constrict both supervisor and supervisee. Allowing people to be imperfect and to show their growing edges requires the supervisor to be willing to learn from the trainee, less protective of her/his own image. Supervisors must also encourage taking responsibility for engaging in conflict and dealing with difference constructively.

Objectives

1. explore strategies for addressing conflict to achieve mutually empowering outcomes
2. to examine the implications of power differentials on the capacity for authentic responsiveness
3. identify strategies that facilitate authenticity in relationships that are marked by power differentials
4. to help supervisors work with the idealized relational images they may hold which can create shame in the student.
5. How to practice non-judgmental, relational critical feedback and minimize shame
   

Judith Jordan, Ph.D.

Judith V. Jordan, Ph.D. is the Director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute and Founding Scholar of the Stone Center at Wellesley College where she and her colleagues have been developing Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) since the late 1970’s. She is an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard  Medical School, served as the director of Psychology Training at Mclean Hospital and was the Founding Director of the Women’s Treatment Program there.  Dr. Jordan co-authored Women’s Growth in Connection and edited Women’s Growth in Diversity and the Complexity of Connection. She is the recipient of the Massachusetts Psychology Association’s Career Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Advancement of Psychology as a Science and a Profession.  She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from New England College  and received a Special Award from the Feminist Therapy Institute  for her work.. She has written, lectured and conducted workshops nationally and internationally on the subjects of women’s psychological development, gender differences, empathy, relational parenting, relational practice in the workplace, new models of leadership, relational awareness, and a relational model of self. She is committed to shifting the prevailing paradigm in psychology from one that reveres separation and “the Separate Self” to one that appreciates the centrality of connection in people’s lives.

Maureen Walker, Ph.D.

Maureen Walker is a licensed psychologist with an independent practice in psychotherapy and multicultural consultation in Cambridge, MA. She is Director of Program Development at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute of the Stone Center at Wellesley College , as well as an Associate Director in MBA Support Services at Harvard Business School

The author of several working papers in the Stone Center Works in Progress Series, Dr. Walker has also written several articles and textbook chapters. She is also co-editor of two books: How Connections Heal and The Complexity of Connection.

In addition to her clinical practice and publications, Dr. Walker has taught courses and workshops in career psychology and vocational development, developing multicultural competencies, and relational–cultural practice in organizations. Other teaching and publication projects involve exploring linkages between racial identity development and relational development, constructions of power in organizational settings, as well as the interface of faith, social justice, and relational practice.

Dr. Walker completed her graduate training and in psychology at Georgia State University and the University of Texas at Austin.