Tell us about your background and how you came to train as a supervisor?
I came across HCC by chance. I found their advert in a local paper, where they advertised their training, I decided to go ahead with it. It was 1978 and I just arrived in London from Lincoinshire, where I used to work as a social worker. At the time the training was six months, I completed it and started seeing clients at HCC. In the meantime, I was in my own analysis. I stayed with HCC, as a staff counsellor for ten years. I meanwhile progressed into a four-year long psychotherapy training with the British Association of Psychotherapists in 1985. Through these years I remained closely connected with HCC, and became responsible for running their training, while building my private practice. I was then asked to become a supervisor in 1994, which makes me a supervisor with 30 years of HCC experience!
What in your opinion, is the role of the supervisor, in an organisation like HCC?
It is a mixture and a balance between supporting and teaching the counsellor/group;- helping them to see beyond, beyond where they are now. Seeing the client’s material in a greater psychodynamic depth, as well as their own response (countertransference); and using the strength of the supervision group to enhance both. Sharing my own professional experience.
What do you enjoy most about the role?
Staying in touch with HCC, it’s a special place, the first place that offered accessible help in the country, first of that pastoral kind, now there are many similar centres. HCC gives trainees and newly qualified counsellors a safe environment where their experience can be monitored and supported. The key to psychodynamic work is understanding your own feelings, only then can you truly, non-judgementally, listen to the client’s feelings, without having to share their experiences. You may not have had their experience, but you can listen to their feelings as feelings are common to all human beings. Having been there yourself first, with a trusted ‘other’ (your own therapist/analyst), and therefore being able to be available emotionally for the client.
Working with people gives me pleasure, seeing how the work I have done on myself, can benefit others. The privilege of using my experience in this way. I enjoy the responsibility of doing my best when making myself emotionally available to others. This work is about sharing in the most meaningful way, sharing one’s mind and feelings is hard, and this is why support (supervision) is needed to do this work.
What do you enjoy least?
Perhaps responsibility, and it is not that I don’t enjoy it, I acknowledge it. And it is particularly hard (perhaps impossible) when a supervisee envies me. It takes time to get there as a supervisor, it takes work, and it is not that there is a summit to climb, it is an ongoing learning that comes with greater understanding, that’s why I do this work!
What are the common misconceptions one may have about the role of supervisor?
That the process of supervision is somehow about assessing and judging, rather than trying to help understand the experience of another and psychodynamic concepts, how the unconscious works in us all.
What are the main skills you need as a supervisor?
Sensitivity to the other, being able to convey psychodynamic concepts in a meaningful way. Something about enjoyment of the process.
How do your experiences and reflections shape and guide the work you do
Totally.
A theoretical text that you cherish and go back to over and over again?
I don’t learn from reading, though I often enjoy papers and books. I learn from sharing with others on an emotional level, it’s a very enriching experience that emotional connection.
First published in our internal newsletter December 2023
