Being a therapist can feel lonely sometimes, especially in solo practice. You spend your days sitting with other people’s most difficult experiences, holding space for what they can’t yet hold themselves — and then you close the door, and there’s no one to turn to and say that was hard or I’m not sure what I’m doing with this one.
Even in group practices, therapists sometimes want supervision outside of their workplace — somewhere they can speak freely, without worrying about how it lands with colleagues they see every day.
At its best, supervision is a relationship — one that takes time to build, and becomes more valuable as it deepens.
The fears that get in the way
Most therapists I know carry some version of the same worry when they start supervision: what if they think I don’t know what I’m doing?
This can shape what you bring and what you don’t, how you frame a case — whether you present it as a real question or dress it up in enough clinical language that the uncertainty is less visible. Whether you say I don’t know what’s happening here or whether you wait until you have a better theory.
The fear of being seen as incompetent is not a sign that something is wrong with you as a therapist. It’s a sign that you care about doing good work. But it can determine what gets examined and what stays hidden — and the things that stay hidden are often the ones most worth looking at.
Building trust takes time, and that’s okay. Starting with what feels manageable, and gradually finding safety to bring what feels more vulnerable, is a reasonable way to begin.
Being held while you hold
Patrick Casement, drawing on some of Winnicott’s ideas, writes about the importance of the student therapist being professionally held while they learn about the kind of holding that a client needs in therapy. The supervisor holds the therapist, who holds the client.
That image has stayed with me. The therapist is not just a technician applying a set of skills. They are a person, with their own history and sensitivities and blind spots, doing something demanding — and that person needs to be held too, while they’re learning what their way of holding looks like.
This field is messier than the training can prepare you for. There are concrete pieces — ethical requirements, legal obligations, theoretical models. Those matter. But there is also this other layer: the therapist’s own personal material, inevitably showing up in the work. The client who activates something old. The dynamic that pulls for a response you didn’t expect in yourself. The session that leaves you unsettled in a way you can’t quite name.
A good supervision relationship creates a space where that can be looked at — not with judgment, but with curiosity. Where you can start to understand your own style of holding, and what shapes it.
Learning your own way
One of the realities of this field is that there’s no single right way to be a therapist. That can be freeing, but it can also leave you feeling untethered — especially early on, when you’re still figuring out what your way actually is.
That learning is individual, and it’s not linear. Some things click early. Others take years of practice before they become your own rather than borrowed from a supervisor or a training. Being curious about your own pace and style of learning — rather than measuring yourself against some imagined standard — is part of what supervision can help with.
Casement also notes that when supervision tips into prescription — when it becomes about telling a therapist how to do it rather than supporting them to find their own way — something can go wrong. It can disturb the therapist’s own developing sense of how to be with a client, in the same way that a mother being told how to mother can undermine rather than support her natural instincts. The holding that works is the kind that believes in the person being held.
On starting early
If you’re early in your career, I’d encourage you not to wait until you feel stuck or uncertain before seeking supervision. The relationship itself — built over time, with someone outside your workplace — is part of what makes it possible to use supervision well when you need it most.
Under the new college structure taking shape in BC, some form of ongoing supervision is likely to become part of the landscape for registered counsellors. But beyond any requirement, there’s a simpler case for it: this work asks a lot of you, and doing it well over time is easier when you’re not doing it entirely alone.
Early on, the quality of that holding matters a lot. Finding someone you can genuinely settle into working with is worth the effort.
I offer individual, dyadic, and group supervision for therapists across BC — for those working toward RCC registration and for more experienced clinicians. In person in Squamish, online across BC and beyond. More on the supervision page or reach out at jill@communicatingwell.com.
