Individual Supervision

Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief? -- William Blake
 

Being a psychotherapist means being present to one who is suffers. We have the privilege of being a witness to some of the most horrid experiences a person might have. But we also get to witness the transformation of that suffering into their new freedom in being themselves.

We need to earn the right to be invited into such a space with someone. In my view, allowing ourselves to be affected by "another's woe" is essential to the work of being an effective psychotherapist. I will come alongside you to help you develop the capacity to make use of your humanity, even while (of course) maintaining the necessary legal/ethical boundaries essential to the profession. Becoming a better therapist is not about techniques-- though those can come in handy at times, but about learning how to meet a person in and through their pain, and to encourage their true self to dare to emerge. As Martin Buber said, "All real life is meeting." 

 

Photo by monkeybusinessimages/iStock / Getty Images
Photo by monkeybusinessimages/iStock / Getty Images
 
 

What you will get

What individual supervision gives you that group does not, is a concentrated effort to focus on one or two patients at a time. In that vein, I would offer the following:

  1. a non-shaming learning environment in the depth psychological tradition
  2. insight into the specific unconscious operating principles at work in a patient
  3. discernment into the transference-countertransference dynamics in your own clinical relationships, and most importantly: how to make use of them.
  4. the sharpening of your clinical ear
  5. an eye to helping you discern your best clinical posture, and enacting it