Clinical Supervision

 

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MY THEORETICAL ORIENTATION TO SUPERVISION

I offer process-oriented, systemic, reflective, and competency-based supervision within a contextual-functional meta-framework. The Supervisee’s phase of professional development will impact how I supervise, with a more affirming and directive approach in the earlier stages of development.

I use the analogy of supervision functions as belonging in different ‘rooms’, including:

  • Observatory (discovery, reflection, catalyst)

  • Studio (creative, interactive, role play, brainstorming; skills development)

  • Lounge (restorative, Supervisee well-being, personal impact & support)

  • Lecture hall (concepts, models, theories, clinical education)

  • Office (procedures, organization and documentation)

  • Dock (ethics and risk management, professional gatekeeping)

  • Conference room (career choices, professional mentoring)

  • Exam room (evaluation)

MY SUPERVISION GOALS AND VALUES

  • I actively strive to contribute to a culturally sensitive and inclusivity-aware culture. I may invite cultural audits.

  • I aim for discussions, evaluations and goal setting to be collaborative.

  • I strive to create a safe and transparent container for feedback, including your feedback of me and the supervision process.

  • I believe in the value of honouring uncertainty and complexity, a multitude of truths and best practices, and several healthy ways to achieve the desired goal.

  • I strive to create a wisdom culture, where we honour the limitations and doubts of what can be known, the capacity to question our sources of knowledge and actions, and an ecological consciousness in which events and actions are related.

  • I may tend to bring my attention to attachment, somatic, neurodivergence and other perspectives I am trained in when reviewing client and also Supervisee needs.

  • I may use the concept of interpersonal patterns as a way of understanding therapist and supervisor perspective on responses in the therapeutic and supervision relationship.

  • I strive to focus on observation of your strengths and skills, and using questions that encourage solution-focused reflections.

  • While the supervision inherently is a hierarchical relationship due to the need for evaluation and gatekeeping, I strive to bring awareness to and minimize the impact of power differentials.

  • I encourage feedback when I fail to live or act in correspondence with my goals and values.

SUPERVISION CONTRACT

Supervision Consultation (“Consultation”) means that you consult me for input on specific cases. When you book a Consultation with me the first time there is an agreement for you to sign to make sure we both understand what is to be expected. All types of session formats (individual, dyadic, triadic, group) can be Consultations.

Primary Supervision (“Supervision”) means that I take on the role of overseeing your client load, and make myself available for urgent and emergency situations. In addition to our regular supervision sessions, we will do quarterly and annual reviews. We look over your hours and documentation at the quarterly reviews, and your goals and achievements at the annual review. Following the annual review I will give you a supervision log for your professional association renewal. The log includes your hours (supervision, direct client contact (DCC), professional development (PD), administrative and marketing, teaching/mentoring/peer supervision, and if relevant supervisory practice) as well as Safe and Effective Use of Self (SEUS) practices, and our agreed plan for your continued development.

There is a face-to-face intake process for Primary Supervision, but not for Consultation. Please bring or pre-send me your resume and a copy of your professional liability insurance to this meeting. Once we have agreed to work together in a Primary Supervision relationship, there is an agreement that we sign together. This agreement is valid until you have reached your goals, or until we decide so. If you choose to transfer to another supervisor, I will pass along your supervision log for your new supervisor.

All Supervisees under a Primary contract must do at least 6 individual sessions per year, and receive a 10% discount on all supervision sessions, including individual, dyadic, triadic and group.

SUPERVISION FORMATS

I offer Supervision in the form of teaching materials, case consultation and conceptualization, review of Supervisee-client video recordings, and review of clinical and progress notes/ assessments/ treatment goals and plans.

Please check my booking site to book Group and Individual Supervision. Group Supervision consists of a set number of sessions over a few months, with a maximum of 8 participants.

If you would like to book Dyadic or Triadic Supervision, please contact me and we can work together to find suitable peers for you to join with for a supervision session - or join my waitlist and specify that you want to do supervision in a dyad or triad.

ACCT recommends that at least half (50%) of the required supervision hours are individual, dyadic, or triadic, and that you receive 1 hour of supervision for every 10 hours of DCC.

MY THEORETICAL ORIENTATION TO THERAPY

All my trainings are in modalities that come from an experiential, humanistic, person-centered, and bottom-up perspective. My training includes perspectives on family systems, gestalt, parts work/ re-parenting inner child, transpersonal, shadow work, positive psychology, solution focused, attachment, trauma, and polyvagal/ nervous system regulation.

AREAS OF FOCUS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLINICAL COMPETENCE

  • The ability to be in relationship with clients, knowing that the role of counselling is relational and that client outcome is directly linked to the quality of the therapeutic relationship.

  • The ability to use reflective practice in clinical work.

  • The ability to view clients from a trauma-informed, holistic, and biopsychosocial perspective rather than assessing and treating the client issue in isolation.


WHAT I EXPECT FROM MY SUPERVISEES

I expect you to disclose any pertinent information about your cases (signs of vulnerable situations), your relationship with them (countertransference, conflict), your own wellbeing (personal life, overwhelm, butnout, feelings of inadequacy), as well as any negative perceptions of me or the process of supervision. It is important that you trust me so we can have a transparent dialogue and weather your fears about the therapeutic and supervisory relationship. Primary Supervisees are also expected to book their hours throughout the year, and send me their hour logs prior to individual supervision sessions.

SUPERVISION FIT

My supervision is a good fit for any counselling therapist that operates within an experiential, humanistic, person-centered, and/ or bottom-up perspective. It is NOT a good fit for therapists whose practice is centered around CBT or other cognitive orientations, for therapists that use behavioral interventions, or for therapists that are not open to learning about themselves from a hierarchical-aware and diversity perspective.

While I am a Registered Counselling Supervisor (RCS) with the Association for Cooperative Counselling Therapists (ACCT), it is up to you to determine if my supervision will be recognized if you are a member of a different professional association.

Please note that my training in EFT/ EFFT and SE does not qualify me to supervise these modalities for credentialing purposes.

For SE students: If you are looking for someone to help you with your SE hours you need someone that has been approved by SETI to offer consultations. It is a long process, where you first have to assist with the program, and then get approved for each level (Beginner through Advanced). I have completed the program but I have not been approved to consult for SE purposes. So even if I had all the hours for my SEP that would not make a difference unfortunately, and I need a couple more faculty consults and pull that paperwork together before I can start assisting.

I don't know of anyone that can do both - ie Supervise as a RTC/ RCC/ RPsych (except some SE faculty) and for SETI hours! I am aiming to get there, but it will be a few years away.

For EFT students: I am also not approved by ICEEFT to supervise for EFT hours, and will probably not get there as they appear to have added a Psych Masters requirement to certify in this modality. I have done all my EFT supervision with Veronica Kallos-Lily, who supervises as RPsych, and recommend her!


ACCT HOURS FOR ANNUAL RENEWAL

Supervision 10 (minimum)

Professional Development (PD) 8 (minimum)

Self-care (therapeutic, mindfulness, spiritual) 8 (maximum, none required)

PD includes

  • seminars, workshops, and trainings

  • industry contributions (writing, speaking, offering expertise, teaching, supervising, operating on a board, servicing an institution)

  • self-directed (maximum 10) and peer mentoring (maximum 10).

ACCT ACCREDITED DESIGNATIONS: REQUIRED COMPETENCY HOURS