In the coaching and mental health profession, good therapeutic practice recommends the regular supervision of all caseload on a regular basis in order to ensure the client's and the coach’s safety, to maintain standards of professionalism and to ensure that the coach or therapist is working within their scope of practice.

Good supervision provides a safe place in which to explore fears, potential errors and blind-spots, and to model and share best practice. As a coach or therapist, it is vital for your own mental health and for the protection of your clients that you seek regular, formal, effective supervision in order to assist you to process, order and give meaning to your experiences – positive as well as negative.

Effective supervision serves many functions for the newly qualified as well as the most experienced coaches or therapists; it is a relationship that will continue and grow throughout your therapeutic career – maybe with a few changes of supervisor along the way, as you develop and grow yourself…

A supervisor has three main roles:

Education 

Particularly in the early days of a newly qualified, your supervisor will help you to understand the dynamics of the client-therapist relationship and assist the growth of your therapeutic abilities by teaching and mentoring you in the development of new skills. They will offer a role model of excellence in their own therapeutic practice, and help you develop greater width and depth in your own knowledge base, especially if they have skills in additional modalities. They may suggest interesting books and CPD courses to enhance your learning.

Support  

Your supervisor will enable you to develop your own self-awareness through encouraging you to reflect on your own reactions and responses in different situations. They will help you to become aware of how a client’s issues might have affected you; and in turn help you to become conscious of the potential effect of your own emotions on your client. They will nurture your confidence and endorse your successes, whilst helping you work through problems and times of stuckness, with empathy and without judgement.

Management 

Your supervisor will help you to maintain your standard and scope of practice, and ensure that your work adheres to the code of ethics and conduct of your professional organisation in order to ensure the safety of your clients. This is a vital element of supervision in the field of mental health, where significant harm can be done through naïve, incompetent intervention, however well-meaning.

Supervision provides a vital element of self-care for therapists, counsellors and coaches in any modality. Without that outlet of a safe, non-judgemental space in which to share our thoughts, we soon develop burnout and compassion fatigue; this is extremely prevalent in other caring professions which have no formal supervision model, such as dentistry for example.

Without effective supervision we are in danger of colluding with our clients; failing to recognise our own blind spots and practicing outside our therapeutic scope. Good supervision offers us challenge and learning opportunities so that we increase our own skills and self-awareness and, in doing so, become more effective, potent therapists; able to better assist our clients in their own journeys of self-discovery.

Joanna Taylor is an experienced supervisor, and is pleased to offer clinical supervision for therapists and coaches on a one-to-one basis, either face-to-face, or via Zoom or telephone. Please contact Joanna if you would like to discuss your requirements.
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Joanna is an Accredited Neuro-Linguistic Psychotherapist, Wellbeing Coach, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Clinical Supervisor and Trainer.  She is an Accredited Professional Member of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS) and a Fellow Member of the Association for Coaching (AC).

Joanna lives in the UK in rural North Yorkshire with her dentist husband and their four dogs, who feature as "The Canine Members of Staff" in her blog, The Teachings of Dog.  She is an international speaker and has had articles published in a number of dental and veterinary publications on the subject of stress and burnout.

You are welcome to contact me if you have any questions about our courses and workshops, or if you would like to discuss Wellbeing Coaching or Clinical Supervision.

[email protected]  |  +44 7968 738119

Joanna Taylor & Associates

PO Box 551, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK  YO11 9JG

Email: [email protected]

+44 7968 738119

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