Supervision
Since 2001, I have provided clinical supervision to practitioners in a range of therapeutic and educational contexts. I offer one to one and group supervision, and supervise experienced psychotherapists, trainee counsellors and therapists, and newly qualified practitioners. I also supervise practitioners who work in social care, trauma and addiction recovery settings.
I am conveniently located in BH6, between Bournemouth and Christchurch, Dorset.
Aims of Supervision
An essential aim of supervision is always to be in the service of protection of the client, and to ensure best practice. Supervision is especially important if there might be risk of either ineffective or damaging practice for any reason. Regular supervision provides much-needed support to ensure practitioners maintain safe, ethical practice.
As a supervisor I encourage practitioners to develop their reflexivity, to reflect on the impact they may have on their client and that the client may have on them. Practitioners need to remain open to giving and receiving constructive feedback from supervisor and peers. I also encourage practitioners to develop their therapeutic qualities and skills, to expand their knowledge and personal abilities in service of their clients and themselves.
Supervision of Counsellors Working with Complex Clients
I have provided supervision for practitioners working with addictions, personality disorders, complex trauma and dissociation for many years. Therapists who work with complex client problems can become at risk of vicarious trauma and burn out.
I believe that supervisory relationships and process need to ensure a safe and predictable experience of gaining support and guidance through explorations in supervision that reduce the risks of therapist anxieties taking over.
Learning through the supervisory process
Supervision can sometimes evoke a key parallel with the therapeutic process in client work. I facilitate a context that encourages practitioners to:
Develop self-confidence and self-esteem as a practitioner
Develop skills of reflexivity and their 'internal supervisor'
Prioritise self care and mitigate against vicarious trauma
Engage in a variety of continuing professional development experiences
Share knowledge about safe, ethical, effective ways of working with clients’ presenting concerns
Settling and grounding
Another key role I embrace as a supervisor is the need to be an effective 'container' for emotional content which is brought up by working with complex and often distressing material. I help the practitioner to notice what is going on for them in their experiences with their clients and what they make of this.
This requires a focus on different aspects of the practitioner’s client work, and life circumstances, including consideration of excessive work pressures and/or external stressors. This seeks to enhance the 'reflective' practice and functioning of the practitioner.
I also help practitioners to carefully consider various elements that may need to be revisited with their clients at times. These include returning to safety and stabilisation, looking at 'boundaries' within the therapeutic relationship, interventions being used or the stage of the therapeutic process etc.
"Counsellors working with this client group regularly encounter a world of agony and despair. They hear details that many in the world outside therapy would prefer to turn a deaf ear to – and indeed may well have done when the client previously approached family members or professionals in their search for help. Therapists enter a realm that has too often been and to some extent still can be dismissed as fantasy. Therefore, while the primary aim of supervision is to enhance and support the work of the supervisee in the interests of the client, in supervising the counselling and therapy of abuse survivors it might be said that the supervisee has equal claim to the supervisor’s attention.” Jacobs (Pool & Jacobs 2017 p 144, 146, 150-151)
Arranging Supervision
Please contact me for information on my current supervision arrangements and fees for individual and group supervision. Session fees for group supervision are divided across the number of supervisees in the group.
