By Sarah Sacks | Psychotherapist & Clinical Supervisor, Melbourne
When we think about clinical supervision, it's often a particular client or situation that comes to mind. Perhaps a session that didn't go as expected, a therapeutic relationship that feels stuck, or a situation where we're unsure what to do next.
These are all good reasons to seek supervision. But some of the most interesting and valuable work, I think, happens when we shift our attention from the client to the practitioner.
Because we are part of the work too.
Whether we're working in counselling, psychotherapy, psychology, social work, occupational therapy or another allied health profession, we bring more than our professional training into the room. We bring our histories, beliefs, expectations and ways of relating. We have emotional responses to the people we work with, sometimes quite strong ones, and we're not always conscious of how these might be influencing our work.
Learning to recognise and understand these responses is an important part of developing as a reflective practitioner.
What Happens to Us in Our Work?
I think many people working in helping professions will recognise the experience of leaving an appointment feeling unsettled, perhaps carrying a sense of responsibility, frustration or uncertainty that stays with them long after the client has gone.
Sometimes we find ourselves working particularly hard with one person. Or we notice that we're reluctant to challenge another. We might feel unusually protective, impatient, or worried that we're not doing enough.
These responses can be uncomfortable, particularly when they don't sit comfortably with our idea of how a professional should feel.
But rather than something to push aside, they can offer valuable information.
What might my response be telling me about this relationship? Is something familiar being stirred in me? Am I responding to the client's experience, my own, or perhaps something happening between us?
Reflective supervision gives us somewhere to explore these questions, without needing to arrive with the answers.
A Place to Think, Rather Than Simply Find Solutions
In many allied health professions, we're expected to make sound decisions, work ethically and respond thoughtfully to complex situations. Yet there isn't always a clear answer.
I value supervision as a place where we can slow things down and become curious about what might be happening, rather than rushing towards a solution.
In my own supervision work, I draw on the Seven-Eyed Model, which invites us to look beyond the presenting issue and consider the therapeutic relationship, the practitioner's internal experience, and the broader context in which the work is taking place.
Although the model comes from a counselling and psychotherapy tradition, its relational perspective can offer useful questions for professionals working across different therapeutic settings.
Sometimes a different perspective is all that's needed to open something up.
At other times, we might discover that the question we arrived with isn't quite the question we need to be asking.
Who Looks After the Practitioner?
People working in allied health and caring professions spend much of their working lives attending to the needs of others.
We listen, assess, support, advocate, and make room for experiences that can be difficult or distressing. Depending on our role, we may also be navigating complex systems, families, organisations and competing expectations.
It's meaningful work, but it can ask a lot of us.
Over time, I've become increasingly interested in how practitioners sustain themselves in their professions. Not simply how we manage our workloads or prevent burnout, but how we remain connected to ourselves while doing work that can be emotionally demanding.
Supervision has an important role here.
It can help us notice when we're carrying too much responsibility, when our boundaries have become unclear, or when something in the work is beginning to affect us more than we realise.
This isn't about turning supervision into personal therapy. It's about recognising that our wellbeing, professional judgement and capacity to remain present are connected.
Finding Our Own Way of Working
As we gain experience, our relationship with our work changes.
We become more familiar with different approaches, more aware of our strengths and limitations, and hopefully a little more comfortable with uncertainty.
But experience can also bring new questions.
What kind of practitioner am I becoming? Which parts of my work feel most meaningful? Where am I still relying on what I think I should be doing, rather than trusting what I've come to know through experience?
I find these particularly interesting questions for professionals who are moving into private practice, taking on leadership responsibilities, or working with greater independence.
Good supervision can support us to develop confidence in our own professional judgement, while remaining open to learning and being challenged.
The Relationship Matters Here Too
I've always believed that the quality of the relationship is central to good therapy. I think the same is true of reflective supervision.
We need to feel sufficiently safe to talk about the things we're unsure of, including the mistakes we've made, the people we struggle to work with, and the moments when we question our own competence.
But we also need someone who is willing to challenge our thinking, offer another perspective, and help us recognise what we might be overlooking.
For me, supervision is a collaborative relationship. One that supports both the work we do and the person doing it.
And perhaps that's what I value most about it. It gives us an opportunity to keep learning about ourselves, the people we work with and the relationships we find ourselves in, without having to work it all out alone.
I offer online clinical supervision for ACA and PACFA registered counsellors and psychotherapists, and allied health practitioners across Australia. My approach is reflective, relational and informed by my experience in community health, not-for-profit settings and private practice. If you're interested in exploring whether we might work well together, you're welcome to arrange a free 20-minute discovery call.
