Sharon Black

Online Relational Supervision & Mentoring
A thoughtful and supportive space to reflect on your clinical work, strengthen your confidence and develop your professional voice.

I offer online clinical supervision and mentoring for counsellors, psychotherapists, therapists and other helping professionals at different stages of their careers.

My supervision is informed by my training and experience in person-centred and integrative counselling, interpersonal psychotherapy and relational practice. This enables us to think about the individual practitioner, the therapeutic relationship, the client’s wider relationships and the systems surrounding the work.

Whether you are newly qualified, an experienced practitioner, moving into private practice, stepping into greater clinical responsibility or simply looking for a reflective space outside your organisation, supervision can give you somewhere to slow things down, think more deeply and make sense of what is happening in your work.

My approach is relational, collaborative and reflective. I am interested not only in what is happening with the client but also in the relationships, patterns, roles and expectations that can develop around the work.

Together, we might explore the relationship between therapist and client, supervisee and supervisor, practitioner and organisation, or practitioner and self.

This can help us notice what may be happening beneath the surface and create space to think about clinical decision-making, relationships, boundaries, confidence, emotional responses, risk, culture, difference, power, identity and professional development.

My Experience
I bring more than 20 years’ experience across NHS Talking Therapies, the charitable sector and other therapeutic services, including senior clinical, supervisory and leadership roles.

I am a qualified person-centred and integrative counsellor, BACP Accredited Counsellor/Psychotherapist and qualified Clinical Supervisor, as well as an IPT-UK Accredited Interpersonal Psychotherapist and Clinical Supervisor.

My experience includes individual therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, relational work, clinical supervision, supporting developing practitioners, working with complexity and risk, and helping clinicians navigate the realities of working within busy services and organisational systems.

My person-centred and integrative background supports me in adapting supervision to the needs, experience and therapeutic orientation of each practitioner. My interpersonal psychotherapy training brings an additional focus on relationships, significant life events, social roles and the connection between interpersonal experiences and emotional wellbeing.

I understand that being a therapist can be deeply rewarding, but it can also involve considerable responsibility. Practitioners may find themselves holding complex clinical work alongside risk, ethical dilemmas, organisational expectations, waiting lists, targets and the emotional impact of supporting other people.

You do not have to hold all of that alone.

My Supervisory Approach
My supervisory style is warm, grounded, thoughtful and collaborative.

Drawing on person-centred, integrative, interpersonal and relational perspectives, I aim to understand both the clinical work and your experience as the practitioner undertaking it.

I aim to create a space where you can speak openly about your work, including the things you feel confident about and the situations in which you may feel uncertain, stuck or challenged.

Supervision with me is not about having all the answers or being judged for not knowing something. It is a place to remain curious, reflect carefully and develop confidence in your own clinical thinking and professional judgement.

I also believe that good supervision should include both support and thoughtful challenge. Where helpful, I will offer reflections, ask questions, notice patterns and invite you to consider different perspectives while respecting your experience, autonomy and developing professional identity.

My aim is for you to leave supervision feeling clearer, more grounded and better able to trust your own professional voice.

Who I Work With
I welcome supervisees and mentees at different stages of their professional journeys, including:

• Students and trainees
• Newly qualified practitioners developing confidence
• Experienced therapists wanting a reflective supervisory relationship
• Person-centred and integrative counsellors
• Practitioners working relationally or interpersonally
• Practitioners developing their professional identity
• Counsellors and therapists moving into private practice
• Practitioners taking on greater clinical responsibility
• New and developing supervisors
• Clinicians moving into senior or leadership roles
• Practitioners navigating career changes or transitions
• People wanting reflective space outside their employing organisation
• Professionals who feel they have lost some confidence, purpose or direction in their work

What We Can Explore
Supervision is shaped around you, your work and your professional development.

Areas we may explore include:

• Clinical reflection and case formulation
• Person-centred, integrative, relational and interpersonal practice
• Relational and interpersonal patterns
• Risk, safeguarding and ethical decision-making
• Therapeutic boundaries, roles and expectations
• Practitioner confidence and professional identity
• Emotional responses to clinical work
• Culture, difference, identity, power and unconscious bias
• The impact of therapeutic work on the practitioner
• Working with complexity and uncertainty
• NHS Talking Therapies and voluntary-sector practice
• Organisational relationships and systems
• Service pressures, targets and waiting lists
• Developing or establishing a private practice
• Leadership and professional development
• Moving into clinical or supervisory responsibility
• Confidence in senior, supervisory or leadership roles

Sometimes supervision is about a particularly complex client. At other times, it is about recognising that something within the work has begun to affect you.

Both deserve space to be thought about.

My aim is to offer a relationship in which you can feel heard and supported while also being encouraged to remain curious about yourself, your clients and the systems in which you work.

Relational Mentoring
Alongside clinical supervision, I offer relational mentoring for counsellors, therapists and helping professionals who would like support with their wider professional development.

Mentoring gives us the opportunity to focus less specifically on individual clinical cases and more on you as a developing professional.

It may be particularly useful if you are:

• Building your professional confidence
• Developing your professional identity
• Setting up or growing a private practice
• Considering your next career step
• Moving into supervision or leadership
• Taking on greater professional responsibility
• Navigating a change in role or organisation
• Feeling uncertain about your professional direction
• Wanting to reconnect with what matters to you in your work

Together, we can explore where you are now, where you would like to be, what may be getting in the way and the practical steps that could help you move forward.

The aim is not to tell you who you should become professionally, but to help you develop greater clarity and confidence in the practitioner you are becoming.

Online Supervision and Mentoring
Sessions are available online across the UK, offering flexibility and the opportunity to work together regardless of location.

Fees
Clinical supervision: £70 for 60 minutes

Mentoring: £70 for 60 minutes

90-minute supervision or mentoring: £105

A concessionary rate may be available for students and newly qualified practitioners by negotiation.

Interested in Working Together?
Finding the right supervisor matters. You need someone with whom you can think openly, feel safe enough to discuss uncertainty and challenge, and develop a supervisory relationship that supports both you and the people with whom you work.

If you are looking for warm, relational and reflective supervision or mentoring, informed by person-centred, integrative and interpersonal practice, you are very welcome to get in touch.

We can arrange an initial conversation to discuss what you are looking for, answer any questions you may have and see whether working together feels like the right fit.