Supervision as a place to think clearly

Clinical supervision is not only about reporting cases or deciding what to do next.

It is a place to slow the work down, think carefully, and notice what may be happening in the client, in you as the therapist, and in the therapeutic relationship.

This matters because complex clinical work can affect the therapist’s own nervous system, judgement, confidence, boundaries, and capacity to stay present.

In this sense, supervision helps safeguard the client not only by focusing on the client, but also by supporting the therapist to remain regulated, reflective, ethical, and clinically available.

Who I supervise

I work with:

  • trainee counsellors and psychotherapists

  • qualified therapists seeking ongoing supervision, reflective practice, or case consultation

  • small supervision groups where there is a shared professional context and clear contracting

My supervision is particularly suited to therapists who want to think relationally and deeply about their work, especially where the clinical picture feels complex, emotionally demanding, or difficult to hold alone.

This may include trauma, dissociation, shutdown, attachment patterns, chronic dysregulation, or layered histories. It may also include any work where careful reflection, steadiness, and clinical containment are helpful.

This can be especially valuable when the work feels difficult to hold on your own.

When this supervision may be a good fit

This supervision may be a good fit if you:

  • want to think relationally and deeply about your clinical work

  • find yourself working with complex, layered, or emotionally demanding presentations

  • want supervision that supports careful formulation, pacing, and clinical judgement

  • are interested in trauma-informed, attachment-informed, or regulation-informed ways of thinking

  • want space to reflect on countertransference, enactment, rupture, uncertainty, and therapeutic stance

  • prefer a supervision relationship that is warm, structured, reflective, and collaborative

This may include work with trauma, developmental trauma, relational trauma, chronic anxiety, hyperarousal, shutdown, dissociation, sleep disruption, or difficult relational patterns.

It may be particularly helpful if you want supervision that can hold depth, uncertainty, and complex process without becoming rigid, overly theoretical, or technique-driven.

How I work in supervision

Supervision can involve several levels of attention: the client, the therapeutic relationship, your own responses as therapist, ethical and organisational context, and the wider direction of the work. The sections below give a fuller sense of how I approach this.

Open any section that seems relevant to you.

  • My style is relational, trauma-informed, and integrative. I aim to offer a space where you can slow down, reflect, and make sense of the work clearly.

    The focus is not only on what to do next, but on developing an approach that feels clinically coherent, ethical, and sustainable.

    Supervision may include:

    • collaborative case formulation

    • tracking process: transference, countertransference, rupture and repair, enactment, and therapeutic stance

    • thinking about the therapist’s own responses, regulation, uncertainty, and capacity in the work

    • pacing, timing, stabilisation, and working within the client’s current capacity

    • thinking about trauma, attachment, dissociation, shutdown, and nervous-system regulation where these are relevant

    • ethical decision-making, boundaries, endings, documentation, safeguarding, and scope of practice

    • supporting your professional identity and confidence as a clinician

    My supervision is also informed by multi-layered models of supervision, including the Seven-Eyed Model, where relevant.

    This means we may look not only at the client and the therapist’s interventions, but also at the therapeutic relationship, the therapist’s own responses, the supervision relationship, and the wider ethical, organisational, professional, and social context.

    This helps keep supervision attentive to the whole clinical field, rather than reducing the work to advice about what to do next.

    The aim is to help you understand the work more clearly, deepen formulation, notice what may be happening relationally, and find a way forward that feels ethical, clinically grounded, and sustainable.

  • Therapists are not neutral instruments.

    Clinical work affects us. We may feel pulled to rescue, withdraw, over-work, become cautious, become too active, lose confidence, feel responsible, feel deskilled, become irritated, feel protective, or struggle to think clearly.

    These responses are not simply personal failings. They may carry important information about the client’s relational world, the therapeutic field, the therapist’s own history, or the pressure of the work.

    In supervision, we can think about these responses carefully and respectfully.

    The purpose is not to turn supervision into therapy. It is to understand how the therapist’s experience may be affecting the work, and how the therapist can remain thoughtful, boundaried, and clinically useful.

  • Supervision may include attention to your emotional responses, body responses, uncertainty, self-doubt, confidence, and professional development.

    However, its primary purpose remains clinical: to support safe, ethical, effective work with clients.

    Where something personal becomes central or needs more sustained attention, it may be more appropriate to take that to personal therapy.

    The distinction matters. Supervision can attend to the therapist’s process, but it does so in service of the clinical work, ethical responsibility, and client care.

  • In trauma-informed work, the therapist often needs to think about more than symptoms or narrative.

    We may need to consider pacing, dissociation, shutdown, hyperarousal, shame, relational threat, protective strategies, and the client’s current capacity.

    We may also need to think about what the client’s system is asking of the therapist: to move faster, slow down, rescue, prove care, stay distant, take responsibility, avoid conflict, or hold unbearable affect.

    Relational supervision helps us notice these patterns without becoming lost in them.

    The question is often not only “what is happening with the client?” but also:

    What is happening in the relationship, and what is happening in the therapist as they try to help?

  • I also offer supervision for small groups where there is a shared professional context and clear contracting.

    Group supervision can be especially useful when members are able to think together with respect, honesty, and care.

    A group can offer multiple perspectives, shared learning, and a wider reflective field. It can also bring its own dynamics: comparison, inhibition, advice-giving, seniority differences, exposure, conflict avoidance, or pressure to perform.

    For this reason, group supervision needs a clear frame around confidentiality, participation, responsibility, and the difference between supervision, consultation, teaching, and therapy.

    When held well, a supervision group can support both clinical thinking and the therapist’s capacity to remain steady, open, and reflective in demanding work.

Practicalities

Supervision is available online by video and, where helpful, in person in Shinfield, Reading, Berkshire.

Most supervisees choose fortnightly or weekly supervision.

We will agree an arrangement that fits your training requirements, caseload, professional context, and budget, and review it periodically.

The aim is to find a rhythm that is both practical and clinically supportive.

For current fees and practical arrangements, please see:

Fees ›

Further information about session arrangements, professional requirements, and the initial consultation is available in the FAQ:

Clinical supervision FAQs ›

Read more

About me ›
For more about my background, training, and professional experience.

How I work ›
For the principles that shape my therapeutic and supervisory practice.

Key values ›
For the wider values that inform how I think about therapy, supervision, and clinical responsibility.

If you would like to explore supervision

You are welcome to get in touch.

It can be helpful to include:

  • your training or qualification status

  • your modality and client group

  • your typical caseload and setting

  • what you would like supervision to support

  • any supervision requirements from your training organisation, placement, professional body, accreditation route, or registration body

If you are working towards qualification, accreditation, or registration, please bring the relevant supervision requirements with you so that we can check together whether the arrangement meets what is needed.

You do not need to have everything neatly formulated before getting in touch. A brief sense of where you are in your work and what you would like supervision to support is enough.

There is no pressure to continue beyond the consultation.

Book a free 20-minute supervision consultation