For psychologists

Supervision is a special professional relationship: it includes learning, practice and feedback in a form agreed in advance. The main goal is the wellbeing of your clients. Along the way it develops clinical thinking and skills, supports your resilience and raises the quality of care. For me it matters that supervision is not only about difficult cases but also a place to gain new experience: to train skills through role plays and experiments, not only to discuss what has already happened. Supervision does not replace personal therapy and does not assess your personality.

You can and should bring:

• difficult and tangled cases;
• doubts about your decisions;
• professional mistakes;
• the conditions of your work;
• how you are doing as a practitioner;
• shame, confusion, uncertainty.

We formulate the question, look at the case or other material. We can work with fragments of session recordings and additional materials, agreed in advance. If needed, we choose targets and skills to practise. At the end we sum up and outline next steps. Feedback comes as questions, hypotheses, explanations and direct recommendations, depending on the request and our agreement.

In a session we can:

• refine the case conceptualisation;
• discuss the therapeutic relationship and your reactions;
• develop assessment and diagnostic skills;
• analyse interventions;
• do role plays;
• watch recording fragments together.

As you need. With regular work you get a fixed slot: we set professional goals, return to the dynamics of cases and to skill development. One-off sessions are devoted to a specific question or a repeat look at one case and are agreed each time around the schedule. Format and frequency can change.

I consider case conceptualisation an important skill for growth, so I welcome it in any format convenient for your method, including your own scheme, in reasonable volume.

Send a written conceptualisation no later than 24 hours before the session. Later than that, we get acquainted with it in the session.

A spoken conceptualisation during the session is a full option. You can come with an unfinished one, with questions about it, or with a request to build it together. If the request is about your reactions, relationships or the organisation of your practice, a detailed conceptualisation may not be needed. You can ask me for a template for your method.

The main focus of supervision is your practice and your request. If gaps in theory come up along the way, by mutual agreement we can devote part of the sessions to them; scope and goals are discussed separately. Supervision does not replace systematic training in a method.

A brief look at the conceptualisation and the request is part of preparation. Detailed review of materials outside the session, including watching recordings, is agreed in advance and paid separately: scope, deadline and cost before we start. Sending materials by itself does not mean I will prepare a written review; without an agreement we get acquainted with them in the session.

I actively use and know well:

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT);
• Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT);
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT);
• Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT);
• Metacognitive Therapy (MCT);
• Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy (IPSRT);
• Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy (CT-R);
• Schema Therapy (ST);
• group psychotherapy in these approaches.

You may work in another approach: we discuss in advance which questions I can be useful with. I provide clinical supervision in the transdiagnostic Seven-Eyed model; in ACT supervision I draw on the principles of the SEED and SHAPE models.

Yes, by agreement, and it is voluntary: a recording is not a condition of supervision. Choose fragments in advance, note the timestamps and formulate your questions.

Before recording and showing it, separate informed consent from the client is needed for the recording and for the supervisor viewing it: purpose, who has access, how it is transferred, how long it is kept and when it is deleted. Consent to discussing a case is not consent to recording. In couples and group work, consent is needed from all participants. A recording is never fully anonymous, so that cannot be promised to the client.

Only with your permission and by separate agreement. You can decline or ask to stop the recording during the session. Recordings are kept for 3 years and can be deleted earlier at your request. They are used only for the agreed purposes; any other use needs your additional consent. While we watch client video, the supervision recording is paused.

I do not disclose the content of supervision to third parties and follow the principle of “do no harm”. To discuss a case, the client’s consent to bringing their work to supervision is needed.

Descriptions must not reveal:

• names;
• contact details;
• identifying biographical details;
• anything else by which the client could be recognised.

If you doubt whether a case is sufficiently anonymised, we discuss it before the review. If I see a breach of ethics or a risk of harm to the client, I say so directly and discuss with you what to change.

1. Where and how long. Online on Zoom, 50 minutes. Regularity by agreement.
2. Homework. I often suggest materials, reading and tasks. If the pace or volume does not suit you, say so and we adjust.
3. Lateness. If you are late, the session ends on time and is paid in full. If I am late, we compensate the time in the way that suits you: extend, carry over the remainder or reduce the fee.
4. Cancellation and rescheduling. Less than 24 hours on your side means the session is paid in full. If I cancel, the session is not paid; a prepayment is carried over or refunded.
5. Technical failures. We get in touch by any available means and agree how to continue; lost time is compensated at no extra charge.
6. Other supervisors. You can combine supervision with me and with others without any approvals.
7. Ending. Either side can end at any time.

A session costs £40. Payment is before the session or no later than 2 hours after it ends, unless we agree otherwise. We will discuss the payment method. Additional work with materials outside sessions is paid on terms agreed in advance.

• Setting the goals of supervision together with you, around the needs of your practice.
• Being clear about my training, experience, approaches and the limits of my responsibility.
• Giving professional feedback in the agreed form.
• Keeping a working and respectful atmosphere, ethics and confidentiality.
• Being on time and keeping to the practical terms.
• Giving advance notice of cancellations, breaks, holidays or being unable to continue.

• Use supervision as a professional space for discussing practice.
• Obtain clients’ consent to discussing cases, and for recordings separate consent to recording and viewing.
• Anonymise cases and follow the terms for transfer, access and storage of materials.
• Keep a respectful tone and professional boundaries.
• Pay for sessions and agreed work with materials on time.

You are. I am responsible for the professional and ethical standards of supervision, a respectful environment and the quality of the process and feedback. Professional decisions, risk assessment, choice of interventions and actions within your competence remain yours. Supervision does not remove responsibility for your own practice.

Yes, on request I issue a free-form letter stating the number of supervision hours completed, for directories, programmes or clients. I cannot guarantee that a particular organisation will accept it.

I can refuse confirmation only if my recommendations for correcting professional violations are systematically ignored. Mistakes and difficulties in the work are not in themselves grounds for refusal.

You can and should. The hierarchy in supervision creates tension, and you have the right to argue with my hypotheses and recommendations, ask questions and propose your own reasoned solutions. Disagreement and criticism are a normal part of the process and do not affect confirmation of hours. If difficulties or tension arise between us, they can become a topic of discussion at any moment. I am a member of ACBS, contextualscience.org, where a complaint can be directed in case of irreconcilable differences.

• systematic breaches of professional or client ethics;
• refusal to keep confidentiality;
• if supervision is used to justify unsafe practice;
• if a working alliance is impossible.

Messages are for practical questions and preparation; clinical and personal matters are for sessions. I am available from 09:00 to 20:00 London time and reply within 48 hours. Telegram: @olantonova. Email: olga.antonova.y@gmail.com.