CREATIVE SUPERVISION

I am a trainee supervisor with PTUK and supervise trainee play and creative arts therapists and qualified therapists.

What Is Supervision?

Supervision under Play Therapy United Kingdom (PTUK) is a mandatory clinical process for trainee and qualified play therapists, providing support and guidance on therapeutic techniques, client relationships, and ethical issues. It's a collaborative endeavor involving a qualified supervisor who offers mentoring, advice, and feedback to help the therapist improve their skills and ensure client safety. PTUK has specific guidelines for this process, including a required ratio of supervision hours to clinical sessions for trainees.

Supervision has two main functions:

Educative
Supportive.

Education

To provide a regular space for the supervisee to reflect upon the content and process of the work
To develop understanding and skills within the work
To help relate theory to practice
To enable the supervisee to apply their approach appropriately to children at different developmental stages
To have an opportunity to think and develop ideas

Support

To be validated both as a person and a therapist
To plan and utilize the personal and professional resources of the supervisee
To give constructive positive and critical feedback
To offer a space to reflect and clarify what is evoked by the work and explore our reactions to this experience
To ensure that the work is done in such a way that the supervisor can be accountable for the monitoring and quality of the work being done with the children

As I value the creative process as a way of accessing the unconscious, I offer my supervisees the opportunity to work creatively. Working creatively can be playful, spontaneous and experiential and this can be helpful in getting to the heart of any process or difficulty which is brought to supervision.

However, I recognise that working with metaphor, or fantasy can be tricky for some, especially those that favour right brain processes and tend to intellectualise. Therefore, it may take time to feel safe enough to do this. So, whilst this method is offered, it is simply that, an offer, ready to be taken up when and if ready.