Finding a supervisor is one of those decisions that’s easy to make quickly and worth making carefully.
The practical side tends to get sorted out fast — you need someone with the right credential, available at a time that works, at a fee you can manage. Those things matter and they’re relatively straightforward to assess.
What’s harder to evaluate — and ultimately more important — is fit. Whether this particular person, with this particular approach, is someone you can actually do good work with.
That’s less obvious from a website or a credential list. And it’s worth thinking about before you commit to an ongoing relationship.
Why fit matters more than it might seem
Supervision is an unusual kind of professional relationship.
You’re bringing the parts of your work you’re uncertain about — the cases that confuse you, the moments you handled badly, the reactions you’re not sure what to do with. That requires a particular kind of trust. Not just in the supervisor’s competence, but in the quality of the space they create.
A supervision relationship where you feel subtly evaluated, or where you find yourself presenting your work in a way that emphasises your competence rather than your questions, is a supervision relationship that isn’t quite working. You get the hours. You don’t get the development.
The supervision that actually shapes your practice tends to happen in a space where you can bring what you don’t know just as readily as what you do.
Questions worth sitting with before you commit
Before you start with someone — or once you’ve had an initial conversation — these are the things worth paying attention to:
Can you imagine bringing your worst sessions to this person? Not your best work. The sessions that went sideways. The client you dread. The moment you said something and immediately knew it landed wrong. If you can’t imagine bringing those things — or if you imagine bringing them and feel vaguely uncomfortable — that’s worth noticing.
Does their way of thinking about clinical work resonate with yours? Supervisors come from different theoretical orientations and have different ways of making sense of what happens in sessions. Some are more model-focused — they’ll help you apply a particular framework consistently. Others are more relational and integrative — they’re interested in what’s happening between you and the client, and in you as a person doing this work. Neither is better. But one will fit better with how you think and where you want to develop. It’s worth knowing which one you’re signing up for.
Do they seem interested in helping you find your own footing — or in getting you to work the way they work? There’s a version of supervision that subtly produces mini-versions of the supervisor. You start using their language, seeing cases through their lens, defaulting to their way of doing things. That can be useful early on if the model is genuinely good. But over time it can get in the way of developing your own clinical identity — your own way of being in the room that’s actually yours rather than borrowed.
Good supervision helps you become more yourself as a therapist. It strengthens your judgment rather than replacing it.
Do you feel like you can disagree with them? This one is subtle but important. If a supervisor offers a formulation or a suggestion and your instinct is that it doesn’t quite fit — can you say so? Is there room for a genuine conversation, or does it feel like their reading of the situation is the one that stands?
The ability to push back, to bring your own perspective, to say I’m not sure that’s quite it — that’s part of developing clinical confidence. A supervision relationship where that doesn’t feel possible tends to produce compliance rather than growth.
Does the format fit what you actually need? Individual supervision offers the most dedicated attention to your specific work and development. Dyadic supervision — attending with a colleague — can offer something different: hearing how someone else thinks about their cases, noticing what comes up for you in response, and splitting the cost. Group supervision adds another layer — the chance to learn from cases you’re not directly involved in, and to see your own patterns reflected back through a wider lens.
None of these is better than the others. They serve different purposes and different moments in a career. It’s worth being honest about what you’re actually looking for right now.
The consultation question
It’s also worth considering whether you’re looking for ongoing supervision or something more like consultation — which tends to be more flexible and case-specific, without the same ongoing developmental structure.
Consultation can be a one-off conversation about a specific case that’s puzzling you, or an ongoing arrangement that’s less formal than supervision. For more experienced therapists it often makes more sense than a traditional supervision structure. For those earlier in their careers it’s usually most useful alongside rather than instead of supervision.
Being clear about which you’re actually looking for helps you find the right fit — and have a more honest conversation with a potential supervisor about what you’re hoping for.
On the fit conversation itself
Most supervisors will offer some kind of initial consultation before you commit to working together. Use it.
Not just to gather information — but to notice how you feel in the conversation. Do you feel like you can think clearly? Like you’re being genuinely heard rather than assessed? Like there’s room for you in the conversation, rather than just their expertise?
Those impressions are data. They tell you something about what the supervision relationship will actually feel like — which ultimately determines whether it’s useful.
One last thing
The supervision relationship works best when you bring what’s actually hard rather than what presents well.
That’s easier to do with some supervisors than others. Finding someone with whom that feels genuinely possible — rather than something you have to work up to — is probably the most important thing you’re looking for.
If you’d like to explore whether working together might be a good fit, the supervision page has more information about how I work — or reach out directly at jill@communicatingwell.com to start a conversation.
