Barbara Thomas

Supervision

I believe that the main aim of supervision is to help you grow in understanding of yourself and of the therapeutic process. Supervision will be led by you and my aim is that we can co create a relationship which is open, accepting and supportive. I will not tell you how you must work with clients as I feel it is important for you to find your own way, one that is real for you. I may offer examples of clients I've worked with or things that I may have done in similar situations. This will be for us to discuss or to think about and not to say that I think that's the only way.

My way of working is to focus on you and your understanding so will not be solely focused on your clients. Please bring all of yourself and by that I mean for you to bring aspects of what is happening for you in your personal life. I think it's important to include this in supervision as this can have a huge impact on your counselling work. If you are in training then please also feel free to bring any aspects of your training and any questions or thoughts you're having about theory and how this relates to practice.

I believe it's important that supervision is a 2 way process and so I welcome and encourage a continuous review of the process. What I mean is that if there's anything you find isn't working for you, or if something is particularly helpful, I would like to hear about it. This helps to make sure that you are getting your needs met.

Just to let you know a little about my background. Prior to qualifying as a counsellor I worked in the corporate world for many years in Marketing Services and before that I was an NNEB Nursery Nurse working with children.

During training I volunteered at 2 local agencies and for some time afterwards. Both of them offered counselling to young people and adults. After qualifying I worked as a telephone counsellor for an Employee Assistance Programme for six years whilst building up my private practice. So, I have a lot of experience with different presenting issues as well as onward referrals and so on. 

I have been working as a supervisor for about 13 years working with small groups and individuals.