Good psychotherapists continually ask themselves questions — questions about theory, and questions about practice.
Theory: “How do I understand this?” That is, what is my understanding of my client’s presentation, and how did they arrive here? What is my theory of how their suffering began, how is it maintained, and what are my beliefs about how people change?
Practice: “What should I do?” Given my understanding, how should I proceed? How do I conduct a course of therapy for this person and, most urgently during a session, what is my next move?
Theory exists to support the therapist in their work. Theory brings structure and clarity to what can seem like a confusion — or even a chaotic eruption — of thought, feeling, and behavior. And theory helps to translate our understanding into appropriate, ethical, and helpful therapist practices.
While there are a great variety of appealing theories available to the clinician, I believe it can be quite organizing to be supervised from a specific theoretical perspective — and, if possible, to join a cohort of people learning a similar approach to the work. This allows the clinician to muster a significant degree of competence in a particular area without being diverted toward other, perfectly good but possibly contradictory, directions.
At GETME, I supervise from the perspective of experiential therapy.
In particular, I mean Client-Centered Therapy, Gestalt-Therapy, and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT begins as an integration of Client-Centered and Gestalt therapies). These approaches share philosophical assumptions about personhood, the causes of suffering, and what processes might be helpful — though they can differ in the interventions they offer to engender these processes.
I run Supervision Groups that meet twice a month: An in-person group that meets Thursdays from 1 to 2:30; and one on Fridays on Zoom from 11 to 12:30. Please contact me if you are interested in joining us.
Note: At this time I’m not able to take on any additional individual supervisees. I do have room in my new Thursday afternoon supervision group.
Fees:
Individual Supervision/Consultation
- $150/hour
Group Supervision
- $25/Group