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Group Supervision

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As someone who has spent a career working as a clinical psychologist and a psychotherapist in “traditional” mental health services it became clear early on to me that the medical model was inadequate for understanding human distress nor was it a good fit for my own sensibility in conceptualising people’s struggles. There have been few spaces in my working career, both in the clinical psychology and the psychotherapy worlds, where I have felt that I could trust in the implicit understanding of those present not to resort or defer to such a model, and where energy could be reserved for exploring the person’s experience, without having to lay foundational understanding or agreement as to the unnecessary dominance of such a paradigm. This includes even subtle use of language that have been features of other professional settings (e.g., “ill”, “treatment”, “symptoms”, “medication”). This has been a core feature of the supervision groups I have been in with Jo. It has been refreshing, relieving, and above all, steadying, to me to realise through involvement in these groups that I am not alone in my realisations and observations. Jo’s groups have provided a forum for me to meet with and mutually support a range of mental health practitioners at a time when I really needed it. 

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Dr Elaine Smith

Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist

Ireland.