Supervising new counselors and contributing to their professional growth and development has been one of the highlights of my career as a licensed clinical psychologist in Virginia for nearly 20 years.  I have been privileged to provide training and supervision to students in counseling, social work, and psychology programs at master's, doctoral and post-doctoral levels in academic medicine, hospitals and colleges and universities in Virginia.  Typically, when I have provided supervision from my perspective as a clinical psychologist (trained in counseling psychology), my voice has blended with supervisors' voices from other perspectives, modalities and even disciplines because the new professional has had multiple supervisors from varying backgrounds to help inform their own developing identity as a therapist.  This diversity of supervision experience enhances the critical thinking, creativity and scientific knowledge base of the therapy profession more broadly.  Receiving supervision from only one discipline narrows the opportunity to learn from diverse professional viewpoints and experience. 

On a practical note, in my current work at a university counseling center, only one full-time staff member is licensed as a professional counselor in Virginia.  The center employs several part-time counselors who are striving to obtain licensure (LPC) who are only able to be supervised by one staff member rather than gaining supervision experiences from six other staff who are clinical and counseling psychologists.  This limits the new professionals' supervision opportunities, places a burden on one staff member to provide all the supervision without back up and deprives six other professionals the opportunity to supervise and share in this important part of a new counselor's development.  If supervision restrictions remain, we and other centers and clinics will likely have to reconsider who we can take on for training and supervision based on their needed license, which could ultimately make it more difficult for counselors to obtain LPC status, thus decreasing the pool of licensed mental health professionals in Virginia.