Flavio Cernotta

Creative Pluralistic Supervision

As a pluralistic psychotherapist and supervisor, I consider supervision the cornerstone of professional practice. High quality supervision is key to ensuring that you find joy in your profession, serve the well being of your clients and foster the stability of your practice.

I am endlessly fascinated by the process of supervision, which feels sacred. Supporting you in the midst of challenges, celebrating your successes and providing holding when you are up against it, is a real privilege. It feels very satisfying when the intersectionality of a client’s context is explored to align your interventions or we have worked together to safeguard a suicidal client and helped you identify strategies for self care.

Supervision works well when it strengthens your clinical skills and provides a creative supportive space to reflect, learn, and grow. I will work with you to understand your needs, provide holding, and offer insightful guidance that strives to make a difference to the sessions you offer your clients.

My experience

I work with well established therapists, students and those just starting out in their career after qualifying. I have experience of supporting students undertaking their PGDip or MA at UcLan (University of Central Lancashire). If you have just signed up to the MA or PGDip with UcLan or another training institute then please get in touch.

I have experience in working with:

• eating disorders
• children of alcoholics
• childhood sexual abuse
• neuro-divergence
• discrimination and micro-aggressions
• sexuality and gender
• loss and grief
• anxiety
• addiction
• relationship problems
• trauma
• suicidality and self-harm
• lack of purpose and meaning
• general counselling

How I work in sessions

As a supervisors I provide the following

• an inclusive, non-discriminatory space
• an approach based on intersectionality that puts diversity equality and inclusion (culture, race, sexuality, spirituality and neuro-divergence) at the forefront of your practice
• a pluralistic approach tailored to your orientation and style
• a collaborative approach within an unstructured or structured session depending on preference and needs
• creative tools to explore dynamics, dilemmas and interventions
• an encouraging and non-shamed based learning environment
• a space to foster independent thinking
• exploration of client work from 7 different perspective
• drawing on your body, mind and feelings to gain deeper insight and develop interventions
• a willingness to sit with the unknown to make sense of what is emerging
• active promotion of self care
• a proactive focus on ethic to protect both yourself and your client

My stance on supervision

I view the supervisory relationship as the core element of nurturing and supportive supervision. Establishing a good enough relationship supports you to feel empowered and develop trust in your own work. It fosters honesty and transparency as you don’t need to hide your doubts, challenges, dilemmas and vision. You are free to be human and learn from your difficulties thereby modelling much of what is key to a good enough therapeutic relationship with your clients.

Supervision is most successful in a collaborative space where we work together creatively with minimal direction. I see it as a live laboratory where the craft of therapy is refined to serve the unique nature of each client and to support you to grow into your own as a therapist.

The three key functions of supervision

I see supervision as having three functions:

Restorative

I care about your well-being as a practitioner and aim to support you to actively care for yourself whilst working with others. Through the restorative function we will tend to the relational aspect of supervision to create the right conditions for you to feel valued, respected and safe. I will be there to celebrate your successes, affirm your strengths and identify areas for development. Well-being and self care will be encouraged. Together we will understand and explore issues that might be affecting your practice so you can find the right support to either resolve them or lessen their impact.

Normative

This aspect of supervision feels daunting and challenging for many therapists but it needn’t be. I am acutely aware of how exposing this can be. It is a further reason I put the relationship at the heart of supervision. Supervisees are so much more responsive and enthusiastic when they feel treated respectfully within an adult to adult relationship. Navigating ethical dilemmas, improving the quality of your work or discuss the management of your practice becomes less frightening within a good enough supervisory relationship where you feel validated and encouraged to learn from your difficulties.

Formative

Through the formative function we will look at your professional development to help you understand which skills, abilities and attitudes you can draw on to strengthen your practice and what additional knowledge or competencies you need to develop.

My theoretical framework for supervision

I tend to the functions of supervision through the Seven Eye Model, which is one of the most widely recognized approaches. This framework creates a rich, dynamic environment to explore the complexities of therapeutic work and support your development as a clinician.

What is the Seven-Eye Model of Supervision?

Developed by Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet, the Seven-Eye Model offers a comprehensive framework for clinical supervision. It focuses not only on the relationship between supervisor and supervisee but also on the nuanced dynamics that shape the therapeutic process. The Seven-Eye Model highlights seven key areas of exploration, which provide a more in-depth understanding of the therapeutic work you are doing. These seven "eyes" are:

1) Client Presentation

The focus is on the phenomena of the session. The aim is to support you to pay attention to the client, their choices and the links between the different facets of their life.

2) Interventions and strategies implemented by the supervisee

This eye is focused on the type interventions and when and why you use them. It helps you explore alternative strategies and anticipate the impact. The aim is to validate and broaden your range of interventions and skills.

3) Client Supervisee Relationship

This eye examines how the client relates to you and you to them. Understanding this dynamic can enhance your interventions and help you navigate difficult situations.

4) Focus on the supervisee

Using this lens we explore how you feel affected by the client both consciously and unconsciously. We also concentrate on your resources and development. We work to help you increase your capacity to engage with your clients and make effective use of your responses to them.

5) Focus on the supervisory relationship

We explore the quality of our working alliance and explore how our professional relationship might be unconsciously playing out or paralleling the hidden dynamics in your work with clients. We aim to render unconscious dynamics conscious to facilitate the therapeutic process.

6) Supervisory Focusing on their own process

Here I focus mostly on my own process in the here and now of our meeting and beyond. I use myself as another source of information to understand what is happening between us, between you and the clients and any response to the material your present. The unconscious elements that are unheard in your sessions with clients might emerge in my thoughts, feelings, images and bodily felt sensations. It is another resource I access to support you and the work that you do.

7) Focus on the context

The client-supervisee-supervisor triad exists within a context that can not be ignored. Professional ethics, organisational requirements, constrictions, relationships with other agencies. The law as well as the social, cultural, political and economical contexts need to be attended to and taken into account when making sense of the client’s issues, our supervisory relationships and formulating hypothesises and interventions.

By integrating all of these perspectives, I strive to provide a holistic approach to supervision that nurtures your growth, sharpens your clinical skills, and strengthens your confidence as a therapist.

My Story

I decided to become a supervisor because I enjoy supporting therapists with the challenges they face in what can be a deeply rewarding but also challenging and sometimes lonely profession.

It was early on in my therapy training that I noticed how stimulating it felt to sit in group supervision contributing to the clinical work of peers and learn from their work in return. That is when the seed of wanting to be a supervisor was first planted. 

As a clinical supervisor, I am committed to providing supervision that is a safe, supportive and helps you identify areas for development so you can thrive as a professional.

My approach integrates the depth of the Seven-Eye Model with a pluralistic approach, ensuring that your supervision experience is tailored to your professional needs whilst serving the best interest of clients.

Whether you're looking to refine your clinical skills, gain insights into your therapeutic style, or navigate complex client dynamics, I can offer you a comprehensive supervisory framework to facilitate this.

I find it really exciting to sit outside of the therapeutic relationship looking in. Helping therapists unpack what is happening between them and their client, in a way that neither of us could if we were sat with that client, feels forever fascinating sometimes challenging but always rewarding.

High quality supervision has made the world of difference to my practice in terms of my clinical skills as well as the satisfaction of clients, both of which have led to a safe and financially stable practice. Over the years I have had my fare share of challenging supervisory relationships. A frustrating but enriching experience. It taught me the importance of being a supervisor who champions your practice and yet is able to challenge without rupturing the relationship. Good supervisors, like good therapists, are not always easy to find. Reflecting on my experiences of supervision, has encouraged me to become a supervisor and offer the same high quality supervision that I feel privileged to have benefited from over several years.