Responsibilities of a Clinical Supervisor
Well it has been a little while since I wrote one of my more critical posts, but here we go. I have noticed over the past few years a marked increase in practitioners calling themselves Clinical Supervisors and offering this service to professional practitioners. In one respect I am delighted, for it was me and Fiona Biddle who saw the need for a specialist qualification for hypnotherapeutic supervison in the early 2000’s. This we created and got nationally accredited at the time. In those days practitioners who undertook the course needed at least 5 years experience as a hypnotherapist and a counselling and/or psychotherapy background.
We did this because one not only has to understand hypnotherapy to be a good supervisor but also therapeutic process which is hardly taught in most Hypnotherapy trainings. I see now “clinical supervisors” with as little as two years experience of hypnotherapy and no counselling or psychotherapy background offering their services. This is a grave error and in the end makes a mockery of the skills necessary to help guide practitioners through the potential minefield of clinical work.
I emplore those who choose to offer supervision services to really reflect as to whether you know enough to offer that which you claim. Be self aware enough to take more training to be a better practitioner and supervisor. You owe this to the profession, but more importantly you owe it to the public which clinical supervision is there to protect.
