CLINICAL SUPERVISION

We approach supervision from a collaborative framework to help supervisees grow in their professional life which will help them better serve their clients. This involves helping supervisee’s clearly develop their professional identity. The work is largely an exploration and development of their own individual therapeutic orientation, style and professional identity. The general areas of focus include working to increase competence in major clinical domains of supervisee’s professional behaviors: counseling skills, personal growth and awareness, client/case conceptualization, screening and assessment, individual, group, family, and couples counseling, client education, ethical and professional standards, and the ability to create therapeutic relationships. Supervisory roles assumed by us include teacher, evaluator, consultant, and counselor. We follow a developmental approach to supervision primarily using the teacher role with novice supervisees and consultation with more experienced supervisees. We also work with supervisees to help them develop increasing skills in their own theoretical orientation. 

As clinical supervisors, we are here to help you learn what you do know and what you do not yet know in a safe and supportive environment that allows you, the supervisee, to be accountable while learning. The needs of the supervisee will change substantially over time and we aim to support and foster that growth while assuring client and therapist safety. We use a reflective model of supervision whether in individual supervision or group supervision. 

The goals of clinical supervision are:

• To develop competence in standard mental health assessment and treatment modalities while encouraging learning and growing within the field.
• To gain a thorough understanding of theoretical orientations and their practical application.
• To develop clinical skills in assessment, treatment planning, implementation and documentation.
• To oversee the development of ethical decision making in the clinical setting.
• To model and promote appropriate ways to work with issues of culture, gender, sexual identity and preference, religious affiliation or other difference in the counseling setting.
• To develop the counselor’s self-awareness and ability to discern what are his/her issues to sort through in clinical supervision and what are the client’s issues so as to avoid counter transference in therapy. While clinical supervision is not therapy, in these instances it may brush up against that boundary as we discern which issues need to be discussed in supervision and which would best be addressed within the supervisee’s own therapy.
• To assist the supervisee in reducing their own professional performance anxiety while increasing their professional identity and areas of expertise.

Clinical supervision can be completed in-person or virtually via secure video.