ABSTRACT
Supervision has long been regarded as a necessary support for clinical work, throughout training and as a form of ongoing professional support. In the wide and diverse field of practitioners, experienced therapists make a variety of arrangements to support themselves: to provide space and opportunity to reflect on their practice and further their growth, and learning through the practice of regularly having supervision in one form or another, in what has now become a requirement of continuing professional development in this country. To find a supervisor who is also a gifted teacher, practitioner and
mentor, was one of the fortunate aspects of this work. By the time I found a new supervisor I knew that I was missing something essential in the work and had been unable to find the help I needed from my usual sources in the primarily humanistic and integrative field, respected peers and at times consulting experts. I needed to go beyond my own peer and colleague group. I was further fortunate in finding someone who was not only gifted, as described, but also flexible enough to work with me, even though I was not a practising psychoanalyst or trained as one. The work with Patrick Casement, my new supervisor, began in the
autumn of the third year some months before my long break. I had met with Patrick a few times when Jane started the art therapy. I took only this case, initially, to supervision and we focused on my transcribed sessional notes. We met weekly for a session and a half, so I was able to have ample supervision on each double session. This combination of changing supervisors, the intensity of the supervision and the encouragement that I was getting from someone I highly respected, soon began to impact dramatically on the work.
