Supervision of Supervision

A Facilitated Group for Like-Minded Clinicians

Co-Presented by Lavender Counselling and Peraford.

The Personal is The Professional

Supervision can be lonely, uncertain, and fraught with professional risk. It can lead us to difficult questions: What am I doing? Am I providing for my supervisee? Meeting their needs?

Sometimes, we might even ask: Why am I doing this? Am I good enough?

At times, all of us are led to wonder whether we are qualified to support our supervisee through this.

When we do start to ask these kinds of questions, they have deep personal implications. They are also usually connected to what is already going on for us. To deal with them, we need as much self-awareness and understanding as possible. But, if we are human, and there is stuckness and confusion around, chances are we don’t have enough sense of ourselves. The personal really is becoming the professional.

In this Supervision of Supervision group, you will have opportunity to:

Experience facilitated exploration of the possibility that what is getting in the way really is rooted inside of us.
Use real examples drawn from clinical practice that evidence how stuckness and difficulty involve aspects of the supervisor, or in the case of a stuck supervisee, aspects of the supervisee.
Explore and learn more about a focusing-informed practice to promote awareness of moment to moment experiencing.
Develop ways of conceptualizing ethical, moral, and legal concerns that facilitate authentic decision making.
Respond confidently and authentically in the moment when difficult matters arise.
Have opportunity, in a facilitated, authentic, and acceptant environment to probe the difficulties and demands of supervisory practice as they arise.
Explore and learn from the facilitators’ combined experience of complaint and investigation processes plus their provision of mandated supervision for colleagues with consent agreements.

Although Carolynn and Clive have considerable experience of current theories of counselling and supervision, they are both guided by a simple empirical imperative: Does this work? Does this help the person I am with?

Independently and in part, in consequence of over a decade of working together, Clive and Carolynn are convinced that what works best in “difficult situations”, and for wounded clients, is counselling grounded in focusing-informed contemporary person centred practice.

Carolynn comes to this from a background in business, education, school counselling, and eventually private practice. Clive’s background encompasses education (kindergarten through graduate school), philosophical research in applied ethics including biomedical ethics and environmental philosophy, and directing and teaching counsellor training at three English Universities. Both have been BCACC Board members. Carolynn is currently the BCACC Regional Rep for the Fraser Health Region. Clive was Chair of Ethics and Standards and Ethics Consultant for BCACC.

We invite Approved Clinical Supervisors and Canadian Certified Supervisors to join us as we continue to explore and learn about supervision in interaction with a group of colleagues.