Clinical Supervision
Welcome to my Supervision page. I am a down to earth, experienced BACP Accredited Integrative Counsellor and Clinical Supervisor and I offer Clinical Supervision to Counsellors, Psychotherapists and Support Workers. I have been trained to Post Graduate Certificate level in Relational Supervision by Relational Change.
My approach to being a Supervisor is deeply relational and it is my belief that if we can form and experience a strong, supportive and authentic relationship with our Supervisor, then we have a solid and holding place to do the work of supervision and help us with our practice, whether that is in an agency setting, privately or a mix of both.
I believe a good supervisory relationship can make all the difference to our work and I hope to offer you the opportunity to experience this type of relationship and help you to explore the difficulties, experiences and dilemmas that can arise in psychological work. Bringing these issues to a supportive, collaborative and collegiate supervisory space, where we can explore them and hopefully offer perhaps a fresh perspective or insight, as well as support competent, ethically informed good practice.
Our work with clients is hard and it can take its toll unless we take good care of ourselves. Tiredness, exhaustion, overload and vicarious trauma are very real and it is easy to just keep working without noticing what is happening. I hope to help you to enhance your self-care by offering you a down to earth, non-shaming, supportive environment where, with time, you will be able to trust and bring those difficult things, as well as what has gone well to the supervisory space. We are all just human beings after all and we are not perfect and you don’t have to be perfect in supervision! In fact, I believe the best work happens when we bring what we consider to be the imperfect bits of ourselves or our work. I also hope we can also sometimes smile and laugh together in an appropriate way, about the trials and tribulations of working in this field.
As an integrative Counsellor I have a wide range of experience with different models and theories of counselling and psychotherapy as well as my own experience (prior to becoming a Counsellor) of being a support worker in an emotionally challenging environment. I have extensive experience of working with a very wide range of presenting issues, including trauma and I bring this experience and knowledge to the supervisory relationship.
I believe that a good understanding of our chosen theory/theories is imperative, as well as how we integrate these into a coherent model that makes sense to us and which enables us to hold a robust theoretical framework to keep our practice safe. I also believe that a clear and strong understanding of good practice, according to our ethical guidelines is vitally important and we will use your professional organisation’s ethical guidelines as the “map” to our work and check in with them as and when we need and certainly we will review work against them regularly.
I have wide ranging experience from NHS, agency setting and my own busy current private practice so I understand the different settings and how this can affect our work. I am also experienced in working with risk and I believe it is always important to be thinking about where are clients are in terms of their risk, and regularly thinking about this, even if the risk is stable. Theory, ethics, legal and risk issues form the bedrock of the work of supervision but as well as this, we will be exploring what it feels like for you to be with your client. We will not only hear their story and their presenting issues but we will be attending to the subtle processes that are alive under the “story”, perhaps using creative ways if this is something you find useful and are comfortable with. Sometimes we can also find that in supervision we have a Parallel Process, mirroring that which is happening between you and your client and this can give us rich information to consider, as well as helping you to consider how this information can help you in future interventions in your work with the client.
If you would like to explore working together please make contact to arrange a free 15 minute call to discuss working together and then from there we can book in some initial sessions to see if we feel we are a good fit. I look forward to hearing from you.