Once a practitioner’s competence is established my supervision model is to work with the person in the position.
INDIVIDUAL CLINICAL SUPERVISION
The approach I take to clinical supervision has two main themes: ensuring competence, and the development of the individual practitioner. As a clinical supervisor my role is to monitor, develop, stimulate, model, consult and support supervision clients with an attitude of respect and empathy.
Clinical supervision is essentially a quality assurance process for the helping professions and, importantly, its clients. Its purpose is to protect clients’ wellbeing, and to develop and protect practitioners in their work.
I tailor the work in sessions according to the individual’s profession (eg. counselling, psychotherapy, social work, psychology, support work, case work, management), the focus of their professional role, the nature of service delivery, the theories and methods suited to clients’ issues, and to the individual nature of the practitioner.
Compared to group supervision, one-on-one supervision allows practitioners to delve into their individual clinical practice, into their professional preferences, strengths, difficulties and gaps, into client presentations and issues of particular interest to them, and into their own nature as experienced in their working life. We work on instances of transference and countertransference with attention over time to repetitive countertransference themes.
Supervision clients vary in their level of clinical knowledge, skills and experience. The supervision content, process and relationship reflect these levels, changing overtime with the development of the supervision client.
The theoretical approaches that strongly influence my own clinical work are set out on the page of this website setting out my counselling style. It is from my ongoing practice using these theories and methods that I draw ideas and reflections for helping supervision clients develop their own clinical work.
For supervision clients who work with me longer term, I devise a 12 monthly review to frame a discussion of supervision sessions in order to keep the process and content alive and relevant to changing interests, needs, development and circumstances of the supervision client.
I am an Accredited Clinical Supervisor with Psychotherapy & Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) more info
Trish Walsh Counselling 