The AoC (The Arts of Change)

Festive Season 2023 Update:

Hello everyone. I will be away on annual leave from Friday 15th December 2023 and will return to work on Tuesday 2nd January 2024. Feel free to email me or leave a voice message during this period and l will respond to you upon my return.

Wishing all my current and future Supervisees a wonderful festive season and exciting 2024!

Christian 

What is Supervision?

Supervision is a joint endeavour in which a practitioner with the help of an independent and professional clinical supervisor, attends to their clients, themselves as part of their client practitioner relationships and the wider systemic context, and by so doing improves the quality of their work, transforms their client relationships, helps to continuously develop themselves, their practice, ethically and safely.  
 
 How best to contact me: 

Please click the url link below to visit my website at:

https://www.myclinicalsupervisor.co.uk

or

Email me directly at:

christian@theaoc.org.uk

(to request either a free 30 minute online consultation) just so we can decide if l am the right supervisor for you.)

or

Call me on: +44 (0)7568 568131

Please leave a brief voice message stating clearly your full name; your request; your contact number and best time to call you back.)

How I will support you: 
 
I work creatively and use blended theoretical and dramatic techniques including; role-play; movement; voice work; poetry; myth; storytelling and story-making; puppetry and mask-work; mindfulness, music and art at times and, where appropriate, throughout the supervision process. 
 
I also work, very closely, with the Modes of Clinical Supervision framework developed by Peter Hawkins and Robin Shoet and taught on my CAST training. It is a process-orientated approach combining relational and systemic qualities of clinical supervision.  This theoretical and practical framework also and in particular focuses on the client that the supervisee brings to supervision, along with the exploration on the relationship between the supervisee and their client, the Supervisee’s methodology, approaches, strategies and interventions used, exploration of the therapeutic process and relationships, the relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee, and the context of the work within the wider system.
 
I have supported a wide range of counsellors and therapists from the traditional therapies and counselling such as psychotherapy, gestalt, person-centred, integrative and CBT to the creative arts therapies, and l have had the pleasure of supporting other dramatherapists as well as art therapists, play therapists, music therapists and dance movement therapists.
 
I bring my dramatherapy training into my clinical supervision practice at the forefront where l assist the supervisee to reflect on all aspects of their work with their client and sometimes using the embodiment, projection and role paradigm. I also work systemically to ensure the family tree is integral: the supervisee is encouraged to investigate who else is in the life of their client, the impact of these relationships, areas for potential healing or refinement and where certain traumatic events may have occurred and shifting blame from one individual to a shared and communal issue.
 
I also work with Moore’s 2008: Process framework for learning in supervision.
Assisting both myself as Supervisor and the Supervisee on how we can best notice, articulate and use emotions as instruments of learning, how we help supervisees manage their emotions effectively and what are the stages involved in facilitating learning from experience.
 
 My Background 

I am both a professional actor and a qualified, registered and practicing dramatherapist. I completed a three year degree equivalent professional actor training course at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music & Drama - graduating in 1987, winning the Sarah Churchill Acting Award. I still work today in film, television and theatre.

I later completed my postgraduate diploma at The University of Hertfordshire and graduated in 1996 as a dramatherapist. 

I am also currently Chief Executive for The Arts of Change in the West Midlands, a multi-award-winning Counselling & Therapy Service, and teach professional acting students at Florida State University. I have worked therapeutically with children, young people, adults and have experience with a wide range of emotional and psychological difficulties. 

 
I completed my training on the Central School Speech & Drama’s Creative Arts Supervision Training Course (CAST)  in December 2021. 

Specialisms

As previously stated, l currently work in my therapy practice with most ages: very young children from 3 years + young people and adolescents to adults with no upper age limit. I also specialise in safeguarding and am a Designated Safeguarding Lead and l have 27 years experience working with:

• Hard-to-engage clients
• Complex needs
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorders
• Narcissism
• Physical Emotional & Sexual Abuse
• Acute to Chronic Mental Health Disorders 
• Gender Identity 
• Sexuality
• Racial identity
• Autism
• ADHD / ADD
• Attachment
• Body Dysmorphia
• Suicidal Ideation
• Depression and Anxiety
• Systemic Family Therapy
• Couple Therapy
• One-to-one Therapy
• LGBTQIA+ 
• Relationship issues.
• Sleep Disorders.
• Eating Disorders.

Sessions

Sessions typically last one hour to one and a half depending on frequency. 

Sessions are conducted via zoom. There is also a sliding scale in fees for those in training to become professional counsellors or therapists.

l look forward to both supporting you and forging a long working relationship.

Christian