Patrick McCurry Counsellor Eastbourne Canary Wharf

Counselling and Psychotherapy in Eastbourne, East Sussex and Canary Wharf, London and Online.

t: 07891 295649 | e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Supervision

"If we want our children to love and accept who they are, our job is to love and accept who we are." Brene Brown

I am a strong believer in the value of good supervision, for all counsellors and therapists. Our role involves helping others and sometimes that can be challenging and we can neglect to also look after ourselves. Having good supervision in place allows you to enjoy your work more, to feel there is someone you can turn to for support and encouragement, and to get a fresh perspective on the work you are doing. It is a crucial part of ongoing self-development and learning.

The approach I take to supervision involves working with the supervisee in a mutual process, rather than me being the 'expert' and telling the supervisee what to do. Of course, the way we work together will depend on the experience of the supervisee, as a student or newly qualified counsellor may need a different kind of support to an experienced practitioner.

In a supervision session, as well as talking about the supervisee's clients, I like to sometimes bring in imaginative approaches, such as working with images. I may also invite the supervisee to pay attention to their counter transference feelings to particular clients, as this can provide valuable information about what is going on at an unconscious level in the counselling relationship.

For me the 'soulful' or transpersonal element of supervision is partly about giving space to non-certainty, not feeling we must always know exactly what we are doing or what the client needs. It is also about trusting that the problems our clients bring to us are often pointing the individual towards something in his or her life that needs attention. Rather than colluding with a client to help them eradicate something in their life that they do not like, we can instead be curious about why this particular problem has surfaced at this time and what it may be communicating.