How to navigate the dynamics of mentorship

Effective mentors play a critical role in psychology by developing individual careers, as well as sustaining the health and growth of the field. Psychologists who have had good mentorship can use those skills to become good mentors themselves, and through this legacy the profession sustains itself.

Mentorships vary in formality, depth, and duration, but their success depends on the interpersonal dynamic between the mentor and mentee, the goals the pair has set together, and the circumstances of the relationship, such as whether it arose from a formal matching process or was a short-term project-based arrangement.

Successful mentorships can elevate the work of individual mentees; they also benefit the profession. As a pre-doctoral intern, Catherine Jones-Hazledine, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist in western Nebraska, was mentored by a senior psychologist who supported rural outreach. Eventually, he helped her establish her multi-clinic practice, which serves eight rural communities in her region. She describes this mentor as an “idea guy” whose personal connections with mentees were always part of something bigger.

“When I think about him, I think about his overall vision,” said Jones-Hazledine, who is still in regular contact with this mentor. As his mentee, Jones-Hazledine “never felt like a cog in the wheel, but like [she] had a place and a purpose in a larger plan.”

With training, psychologists serving as mentors can learn how to honor the needs of their mentee and create a safe space for both parties to learn and grow their careers.

“Mentorship is invaluable for professionalizing psychologists into the field of psychology,” said Laura Howe-Martin, PhD. “It’s the greatest avenue to grow in the field and to help other people coming after you to do the same.”

Productive pairings

In settings where there is already a formal mentorship program in place, it’s easy to get started.

Howe-Martin, who is a professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the Department of Psychiatry, said that formal mentoring programs in academic settings aim to pair mentors and mentees in an unbiased and standardized way.

“This reduces disadvantages faced by individuals who don’t know how to initiate these relationships, or who might not know that they are appropriate to pursue,” said Howe-Martin.

When there isn’t a formal mentorship structure in place, it takes more initiative. Students and established psychologists may get involved in the programs offered by APA’s Division 12, Division 18, Division 29, and Division 45. In clinical settings, without the built-in mentorship structure provided by their training, early career psychologists may need to proactively reach out to their colleagues to establish mentoring relationships.

“Solo providers can really struggle with this,” said Jones-Hazledine. “They need to be proactive and open to creative solutions” such as peer mentoring or looking for online mentorship connections.

Sarah Reiner, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist living in Dallas, Texas, encouraged psychologists in this position to look for networking events for psychologists geared toward mentorship. She recently helped host such an event and said several private practitioners who attended were then matched with mentors.

“The feedback we got was that they really appreciated it, because it wasn’t an opportunity they normally had,” she said.

Regardless of how the pairing is established, effective mentorship should be centered on the mentee. That might mean affirming and guiding your mentee as they travel a different professional path from your own. It also means welcoming feedback from your mentee and being open to your own growth within the relationship, said Tiffany Parisi, MA, MPH, the current chair of the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS) and a 4th-year clinical psychology graduate student at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California.

“One thing I’ve noticed across successful mentor relationships is that I gravitate toward those who have a sense of professional humility,” Parisi said. “Yes, they’re experts. But more importantly, they have the humility to admit when something changes, when they’ve been wrong, or when they’ve made a misstep.”

Since knowledge is constantly evolving and expanding, she said, it’s vital to have a mentor who reflects on their current expertise and embraces the potential of the yet unknown.

“Are they able to balance and articulate the divide between their current scope of knowledge and areas where they are not experts? Do they demonstrate the ability to recognize when your knowledge may be more developed in certain areas and express interest in learning from your experience and expertise?” These are questions that the mentees should ask themselves as they evaluate prospective mentors, Parisi said.

Parisi suggests that mentees assess whether their mentor openly and independently reflects on instances when they were incorrect or engaged in inappropriate interactions with them (such as microagressions or macroaggressions), and if they provide feedback in a manner that is growth focused and nonpunitive.

The mentoring programs offered by APA’s divisions are a good place to start for those interested in cultivating their own professional humility, Parisi said. Additionally, she recommends the LGBTQIA+ Mentoring Program offered by APAGS and APA’s Disability Mentoring Program.

Navigating equity and identity

Parisi, who is Cuban American and a first-generation college student, noted the significant lack of diversity of professionals in the field. This can have a major impact on mentees with marginalized or underrepresented identities, she said.

“One of my challenges has been interacting with mentors who don’t share my identities and initiating open communication with them about their own expectations and their preconceived biases,” she said.

Mentors should be cognizant of their own intersecting identities as well as those of their mentee’s and be sensitive to how those identities might influence their mentees’ experiences, she said.

“The mentors whom I have most admired have been the ones who openly spoke about the power dynamics of our relationship, particularly in regard to my being a graduate student and Latinx,” she said. “These conversations made it safe for me to openly discuss how I was experiencing the mentorship experience and potential issues that emerged.”

Psychologists who wish to educate themselves on these topics can look to research (Brown, C. E., et al., Training and Education in Professional Psychology, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2022; Santa-Ramirez, S., Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2022) and also take advantage of APA’s mentoring programs to develop these skills.

Mentors should also remember that students with marginalized identities may struggle to navigate systemic barriers to seeking out mentoring and may need additional support within the mentoring relationship.

“We have to recognize that it’s not all on them” to establish the relationship, said Howe-Martin. Relying entirely on mentees to take the initiative in developing mentoring relationships leads to disparities and “uneven mentoring.” Mentors can do more to address these concerns on a structural level, she said.

“Mentors can create systemic processes with their colleagues that give students opportunities to receive formalized mentoring,” said Howe-Martin.

In academic settings, “this usually has to be done in a top-down manner by administrators who have the power resources to do so,” she said.

Howe-Martin, Reiner, Jamylah Jackson, PhD, and Julia Smith, PsyD, offer a detailed and research-driven approach to starting formal mentorship programs in their presentation, Creating and Sustaining a Culturally Sensitive Mentorship Program for the Budding Psychologist and Beyond: Practical Applications (PDF, 1.27MB).

If an institution doesn’t have a formal program in place, mentors can still proactively cultivate relationships with their mentees to help them overcome structural barriers to mentoring.

“The mentor must check in with their mentees regularly, ask what they need, and proactively ask them about the goals they would like to set” and how they want to approach those goals, Howe-Martin said.

Naming the power differential

Kalyani Gopal, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and the president of Mid-America Psychological and Counseling Services based in Munster, Indiana, said that warmth and collegiality have been important to her mentoring relationships, both as a mentor and a mentee. “In every supervisory relationship I’ve had, I’ve been treated as an equal despite the power differential,” said Gopal, who is also the current president of APA’s Division 12, the Society of Clinical Psychology.

In turn, she said, she views the early career psychologists she supervises at her practice in the same way. “They’ve had the same training I’ve had and have made the same sacrifices,” she said. “We have a shared experience that helps facilitate the mentor-mentee dynamic.”

Nonetheless, in many mentoring relationships, there is a power differential between the mentor and the mentee that must be acknowledged and navigated. “In an ideal situation, a mentor provides a framework of recognition and acknowledgment of the power dynamic and works to name that dynamic during their interactions with the mentee,” said Parisi. “This makes space for the mentee to share their experiences within the relationship that may have been less than ideal.”

Reiner said the mentor should initiate a conversation with their mentee about the frequency and mode of communication, the duration of the relationship, and expectations around privacy and confidentiality. “It’s ideal for the mentor to set the tone and to lead in determining expectations around the structure and boundaries of the relationship,” she said.

Mentees can also set the tone, frequency and mode of communication with their mentor. If the relationship is new, the mentee can choose to defer to whatever the mentor suggests or recommend other options.

In some situations, mentors might even consider a written contract, Reiner said. In a formal program, the contract might include policies and procedures around potentially thorny areas such as confidentiality and reporting unethical behavior. “Getting all that in writing could be helpful in some situations,” Reiner said. “A very detailed contract speaks to the power differential when we’re talking about a mentee who is training versus a mentorship between two psychologists at a similar time in their career. The greater the power differential, the greater the need for a more explicit contract.”

In some instances, a mentor has an unavoidable dual role with their mentee and may be asked to make decisions about a mentee’s grade, performance review, or promotion. This can happen if the mentor is the mentee’s professor or in a position of authority in their shared workplace. It’s especially important for the mentor to understand and acknowledge that there isn’t as much safety in the relationship for the mentee in this situation, according to Reiner. “There aren’t formal rules about how to navigate this,” she said, but she suggests putting some boundaries in place “to protect the relationship, similarly to how you might with a patient.”

Challenging conversations

Good mentors understand that there may be miscommunications, moments of tension, or possibly even times of conflict with their mentees. “In good relationships, miscommunication occurs. It’s normal. It’s how we navigate them that really matters,” said Parisi.

One way to mitigate these issues is by having an ongoing and clear conversation about expectations, said Reiner, and be upfront with your mentee if they need to change. “If the time commitment or level of support you can offer them changes, have an honest conversation and negotiate that within the relationship,” she said.

When the problem has to do with the mentee’s clinical decision-making or another professional issue, Jones-Hazledine begins with trying to understand the mentee’s approach. “That’s what I appreciated when I was a mentee or in a student role—mentors who explored with me and didn’t come at me assuming I made a stupid or negligent choice,” she said.

Parisi suggested a similar framing when addressing conflicts or microaggressions within the mentoring relationship. “I have approached these situations by saying, ‘I’m hoping to gain more clarity from this, and then we can walk away with mutual understanding. When you said this, I felt erased or invalidated. So can you help me understand where you were coming from?’”

Sometimes, these conflicts may be less personal. “It’s not necessarily a negative thing, but differences in theoretical orientation and conceptualization can be really challenging—views of what creates behavior, what maintains behavior, and how to intervene,” said Jones-Hazledine. “That can be really frustrating and challenging but can also be really rewarding. It can help both sides to reflect and reaffirm what they believe.”

Finally, being the best mentor for your mentee may mean ending the mentorship. “Sometimes, the relationship just may not be what you expected in the beginning, and that’s okay. In other contexts, the project you were working on together may end, or things may just naturally fade out,” said Reiner. “Check in with yourself emotionally: Did this run its course? Or is it just not meant to be a long-term mentorship connection?”

If a mentor and a mentee just aren’t a good match, and the mentor doesn’t have concerns about their ethics or their effectiveness as a clinician, then it’s a good idea to try to connect them with a colleague who might be a better fit. “You need the humility to ask: Am I able to give them what they need? And you might not be able to,” said Howe-Martin.

Some psychologists in a supervisory mentor role may be concerned about having to compete with their former mentee, but Gopal said that isn’t the right mindset.

“As a result of your professional nurturing, they may decide to move on,” she said. “If they do, there’s no competition. There are too many patients, and the need is too great.”

Mentors should never stop learning

“Psychology would be better off as a field if mentorship could be developed into and researched as a competency, similar to what has been done with supervision,” Howe-Martin said.

For now, students and psychologists should continue seeking plentiful and diverse opportunities to mentor others and be mentored. For example, Howe-Martin encouraged aspiring mentors to look for formal mentoring opportunities within their professional organizations, departments, or educational programs. “If there isn’t one, research what it would take to create one and think about doing just that,” she said. She also recommends seeking workshops and other didactic opportunities focused on mentorship skills.

“APA now offers speed mentoring at the annual convention. Many APA divisions and specialty organizations offer some form or other of mentoring or mentor pairing, even for graduate students,” she said. Furthermore, “psychology can also learn a lot from business here. For example, the Harvard Business Review often publishes useful articles on mentoring.”

In addition to taking advantage of training opportunities and practicing your skills, Jones-Hazledine recommends doing a deep dive into research on mentorship and supervision. “I wish that I had begun years ago with a literature review on supervising and mentoring,” she said. “It’s a good starting point.”

Additionally, she said aspiring mentors should do some personal reflection about their own experiences being mentored and let that guide them.

Similarly, Reiner said that growing as a mentor requires both internal reflection and external practice. “Practice confidence and humility in your interactions with others and be open to new opportunities, even in unexpected places or settings,” she said. You can do this by being aware of the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you bring to any conversation, while also remembering that every single interaction with another human has the potential to bring a new and exciting perspective, she said.

“We are always learning from others, and, who knows, a potential mentorship relationship could develop from someone you meet in line at a conference, at a coffee shop, at your place of worship, or online. The possibilities are endless if your eyes are open to see them,” she said.

Reiner also recommends that mentors pay attention to their emotional reactions and personal boundaries and learn to express them in effective ways in mentoring relationships.

For example, she said, “a common scenario could be a mentee who shows up late for mentorship appointments. A knee-jerk initial reaction might be to assume that he or she does not value and respect the time together and to question the overall mentorship relationship.”

However, if the mentor can gently explore this concern with the mentee, “that may open up valuable areas of mentorship focus, such as time management, improved professional development, or in vivo experience of respectfully establishing boundaries and the process of renegotiating schedules or expectations,” she said.

These areas may not be primary goals of the mentorship relationship, but they can provide opportunities to develop beneficial skills for both the mentee and the mentor.

For many psychologists, some of this work may be a given. “I think clinical psychologists are naturally good mentors,” said Gopal, who likened mentoring to working with patients and guiding them to draw their own conclusions. “Mentoring is intrinsic to our training.”

Nevertheless, learning to be a mentor—as well as a mentee—is a career-long commitment, said Reiner. “Though I may now have more training and experiences to reflect upon, I see each new connection as an opportunity to grow and be impacted positively by another individual, whether they are a potential mentor or mentee,” Reiner said.