James is a third year, full-time, doctoral student in a counselor education and supervision program. James identifies as a cisgender, white, male. He is providing weekly telehealth supervision to a master’s level internship student, Selena, who is enrolled in his Practicum course. Selena identifies as a Hispanic, female.
Selena has been receiving weekly supervision with James for the past 2 months and has planned to show a recording of a new client during their weekly scheduled supervision session. James asks Selena for verification that all informed consent documents and client's permission were obtained to record the session. Selena verifies that she has used the informed consent intern forms from her practicum site and has obtained permission from the client. These forms disclosed that Selena was a student under supervision, but it did not specifically state what university Selena is enrolled in, or who her faculty supervisor was.
Selena shows the recording of the counseling session to James for review. In the recording, Selena’s client, Henry, is discussing a recent affair that he had and how he plans on leaving his spouse in the near future. James is visibly upset as he watches the recording with Selena. James begins to give Selena advice on how she needs to strongly encourage the client to tell their spouse about the affair. Selena does not feel comfortable with this guidance from the supervisor but follows through with the recommendation due to feeling pressure from her supervisor.
Fifteen minutes prior to their next scheduled supervision session, James informs Selena that his Doxy.me account has not been working properly and states that he will FaceTime her instead for supervision just this once, because he does not want to miss their weekly supervision. During this supervision session, James then focuses only on this case and continues to give advice on how Selena should be protecting the client’s spouse in this situation. Selena is uncomfortable with this direction and the attention that James is giving to this case. She decides to consult with her site supervisor who encourages her to focus on the client’s perspective. In the next session with the client, he stated that he is apprehensive about how his spouse and in-laws will treat him if he discloses the affair. In this meeting Selena finds out that James is the father-in-law of her client. Selena is now unsure how to approach this situation.