Supervision for Therapists
Supervision is known internationally as an essential practice for ongoing competency development and is an important way to verify the competency standards of ethical care. You can read about my creative approach to supervision HERE.
Keeping in line with industry trends, all counsellors and therapists are recommended to attain monthly supervision during their first 1000 direct client contact hours, and ongoing supervision throughout their career.
For ACCT Counsellors the requirements for new counsellors are 50 hours for your first 1000 direct client hours, with a minimum of 10 hours of supervision per year, over a period of five years of practice.
How is a Typical Supervision Session Structured?
For supervision, typically we would start with client cases for the first half of the session, and discuss different questions you might have and discuss alternative approaches. If you do not have a lot of clients yet, we discuss business set-up ideas, marketing, defining your unique offering etc.
For the second half of the session we would usually do personal emotional work as it relates to your client cases or building your new business - re: looking more deeply at anything that is bothering you, exploring any parallel processes etc. Some people like to creative work over Skype/Zoom, and we can do some expressive art to explore your inner processes too.
Those interested in attaining my supervision services include:
1. Competency based counsellors in Canada who have just completed their course studies, and are looking to find their "original voice" in the counselling profession.
2. Art therapists, creative therapists/coaches and expressive arts facilitators who want to combine art and/or intuition with ethical, empowering service delivery.
3. Counsellors who want to implement creative modalities and/or intuitive/transpersonal/depth psychology as part of their therapeutic framework.
4. Counsellors who are in the process of attaining experience in a professional capacity, and want to deeply explore their personal emotional dynamics as they relate to client cases.
6. Counsellors who are working through initial or ongoing doubts about the practical and emotional challenges of setting up a therapy or art facilitation business, and who want to share honestly about the inevitable insecurities of starting a therapy/facilitation practice.
7. Counsellors currently seeing clients who want to see their inner life as a mirror of their outer life in their therapy practice - as well as see the deeper meaning and larger spiritual scope of their client interactions.
I often use a creative approach to the "Seven-Eyed" model of supervision for those wanting to explore the deeper synchronistic healing, and systemic healing patterns inherent in working with people.
8. Therapists who want to deeply process their own limiting psychological beliefs, and clear out painful emotions from the past, as well as explore how the current challenges in their personal life reflect their strengths and struggles as a helping professional.
Typically, the first half of a supervision session is focused on client cases and the second half involves taking a deep look at what's coming up for you emotionally. Together we take a loving look at how your emerging inner life ties into the "mirror" of your current clients and the growth of your practice.
Your First Years of Practice
My focus as a supervisor is to support and warmly encourage counsellors to begin their practice aligned with their authentic style. I offer creative, experiential, process oriented supervision rather than academic focused supervision, and I specialize in online service delivery via Skype and phone to support helping professionals find and anchor their original offering in their practice.
If you would like to bring your personal art and creative writing to your supervision process, we will explore the deeper dynamics of your therapy practice as it affects your emotional healing, and take a deeper look at your counsellor/client relationships through depth psychology - ie. metaphor, symbolism, art and dreams.
The Monthly Supervision Process that I offer includes:
1. Review of client cases, or in the initial stages, understanding what kinds of clients that you want to work with, and how to design a personal growth plan that best supports you to confidently deliver your work to others.
2. Engagement in your own emotional healing as it will/or does affect your client cases. This can include deep personal sharing and emotional processing during your session, as well as bringing your personal art and story writing to supervision.
3. Core-competency counselling skill development, use of wellness practices, understanding and elucidating your unique scope of modalities, private practice development, learning how to take good progress notes, understanding counsellor and client ethics, power and group dynamics, and relational boundaries will be explored.
4. Monthly homework, online expressive arts facilitation for your own emotional healing, as well as guided and self-directed learning in areas of your therapy or group facilitation practice that you want to gain confidence in.
5. A creative and deeply caring, encouraging approach to supervision that fits your unique interests and learning goals.
* For group art facilitation supervision to explore group leadership, workshop planning, pacing and confidence building see Peer Support for Expressive Arts Facilitators.
