Supervision
Two or more people form a ‘supervisory alliance’ with shared objectives about how to work together constructively to provide a safe, ethical and competent service to clients
Good Practice in Action 054: Introduction to Supervision in the counselling professions, BACP
In 2025, I am undertaking Supervision training with Kathy Raffles Supervision Training in Bridgwater and hope to qualify in August. If you are interested in finding out more about having supervision with me, please get in touch.
As an integrative therapist, I also integrate various supervision models. I mainly use Hawkins and Shohet’s Seven-Eyed Model and Inskipp & Proctor’s Cyclical Model, but I am also influenced by Norman Kagan’s Interpersonal Process Recall and Petruska Clarkson’s 5 Relational Levels. I also integrate psychodynamic and person-centred models, in my awareness of transference and counter-transference between client/supervisee/supervisor, and faciltiating the supervisee’s congruence in their relationship with the client, amongst other things.
I am interested in supervision for groups and hope to offer this to organisations once qualified.
Summary of main supervision models:
Inskipp & Proctor’s model focuses on the Normative, Formative, Restorative Tasks.
| Task | Areas covered in this task | Goals for the Practitioner: |
| Normative | Ethics, Standards, Safeguards, Contracting, Boundaries | Ethical |
| Formative | Educative, Practice Development, Sharing Ideas, Process | Competence |
| Restorative | Laughter, fun, play, creativity, space to explore | Confidence and Creativity |
Hawkins and Shohet’s Seven-Eyed Model
Explores seven areas, including:
| Seven Eyes | Detailed explanation | |
| 1 | Client | What and how they present |
| 2 | Therapist/supervisee | Exploration of the strategies and interventions used by the supervisee |
| 3 | Client-Therapist relationship | The relationship between the client and the supervisee, including transference |
| 4 | Supervisee | Therapist’s thoughts, feelings, reactions, including countertransference |
| 5 | Supervisor-therapist relationship | What’s happening between them |
| 6 | Supervisor’s reflections | The supervisor focusing on their own process, including fantasy supervisor/client relationship |
| 7 | Wider systemic context | Focus on the wider contexts in which the work happens; the client, therapist or supervisor’s context, the organisational context of any member, the wider world. |
References:
- Inskipp & Proctor Becoming a Supervisor (1995)
- Hawkins & Shohet Supervision in the Helping Professions (2006)
- Norman Kagan Interpersonal process recall: A method of influencing human interaction (1976)
- Petruska Clarkson The Therapeutic Relationship (2003)
Sally Davies
MBACP (Accredited)
PGDip Integrative Counselling
