Increase your skills with private training…
I offer ongoing clinical supervision or consultation for licensed mental health professionals on your work with patients. Are you confused about what’s going on and how to help? Let’s talk.
What is clinical supervision for therapists?
Clinical supervision for therapists is a process in which we establish a regular time to go over your clinical sessions and your clinical work in detail. In working this way together, my goal is to help you develop your therapeutic skills.
This kind of therapist training provides a safe place to reveal your clinical doubts, struggles, or questions about your work. In our meetings, we’ll carefully go over the specifics of your client sessions. I’ll help you clarify what’s going on in your therapeutic relationships from moment to moment. There may be various things you’re unsure of. Clinical supervision helps you to develop more certainty about the client’s communications and how to best intervene.
For example, as a part of some difficult and complicated patient treatments, you might feel your therapeutic work has stalled. Or even have doubts about whether you can help a particular patient. These are troubling therapeutic events. As a result, another pair of supervisory eyes and ears can be of great help in sorting things out. Or, you just might feel that there is more to understand that you don’t yet have the skills to see.
Seeing what is below the surface or working out impasses can be a part of our ongoing supervisory relationship. Or you might want to come in for a series of consultations. As a part of private therapist training or consultation sessions, we will look for solutions to help move the therapy forward.
What does a clinical supervision session entail?
In a clinical supervision session, I’ll ask you to first bring a brief history of your work with the patient to date and your patient’s childhood and family history, including any repetitive dreams, early memories or traumas. I will also ask you to bring process notes of 2 recent sessions, a back and forth, “the patient said, I said.” That allows us, together, to look closely at what is going on in the work.
If you continue with me in ongoing weekly supervision, you’ll bring these process notes to each visit. We’ll look at your patient’s transference, the ways the past lives in the present therapeutic relationship. And, we’ll find meaning and usefulness in your own countertransference reactions.
In our sessions, we’ll address any concerns or stumbling blocks you have with the patient we are discussing. Most importantly, you’ll have a chance to know more about your patient’s unconscious communications. Plus, I’ll help you find new ways to talk about these directly with your patient.
Do you observe client-patient-therapist interactions in clinical supervision?
No, I don’t directly observe client-patient-therapist interactions. But we can look closely at what happens between you through the detailed process notes you bring, written as closely after the sessions as possible.
Do we meet in person?
Under ordinary circumstances (when I am not out of my office due to the COVID-19 pandemic), we would meet in my office if you are in the greater Los Angeles area. During COVID, I am working by HIPAA-compliant Zoom. So, we’ll meet by Zoom now, or if you’re outside Los Angeles and wish to have supervision with me, that will be our main form of communication.
The difference between therapist training consultations and accreditation training
What I offer is private clinical supervision or therapist training consultations to licensed mental health professionals. Accreditation training (or accredited training) would be provided through a degree program at an accredited training institution, for a non-licensed person seeking a degree.
If you don’t yet have a degree, there are many accredited institutions that offer one. If you have a degree, but are unlicensed and looking for supervised hours, that is not something I can provide.
Who is eligible for clinical supervision?
I am available to do private supervision if you are a licensed mental health professional with either a Ph.D., Psy.D., LCSW, or MFT license. Since I am a psychoanalyst, the most important factor in working with me is your motivation to learn to use psychoanalytic psychotherapy interventions and understanding.
I have an extensive background in clinical work with quite troubled and traumatized patients, including experience working in a psychiatric hospital providing intensive and long-term care in the late 1970s.
I can supervise you regarding patients who have borderline personality disorders, sexual abuse histories, childhood abuse, eating disorders (under medical supervision), dissociative elements to their personality, as well as patients who present with anxiety, panic, obsessional symptoms, and depressive disorders.
Can I work with you if I’m outside Los Angeles or the United States?
Yes, I am licensed in California and can work with you by HIPAA-compliant Zoom from any city in California. If you are licensed and out of the country, I can work in a consultative capacity, also by Zoom.
How long is the therapy clinical supervision program? Is it ongoing or just one session?
The length of time we work together in clinical supervision is up to you. We can work for a period of time in ongoing weekly supervision. Or, I am available for a one-session consultation about a particular issue.
I’d like to learn more about working with you for supervision. What’s next?
Please feel free to contact me by email at sandracohenphd@gmail.com to discuss working together. I’m happy to offer you a 25-minute complimentary consultation on Zoom to see if you feel we’re a good fit.
