Lynda Piears

Supervision and Mentoring: Supervision should be, in my opinion, collaborative, supportive, challenging at times, joyful, helpful and above all a place for you to bring your true self to fully engage in honest and deeply relational work alongside the person you trust as your supervisor, working together as colleagues

When you have had supervision with someone you feel you work well with, you will come away with a new perspective, renewed energy for the work that you do, a sense of feeling grounded in your work, with better understanding and insights into the way that you work and who you are as a therapist, in relation to your clients.

I offer a space where you can bring your challenges, worries, successes and where you can fully share your work and experiences, a space where I offer the required confidentiality, respect, support and understanding without the worry that your will be judged or thought less of. It is a place of safety and support where we can reflect on your work, your relationship with your clients, where you can bring personal issues that you feel may affect your work alongside your professional self and how this impacts your work as a therapist with the aim of working towards best practice for your clients. 

Supervision should, in my opinion, cover all aspects of counselling, so it should offer learning, support, challenge and help to normalise your concerns and experiences. 

When you have a collaborative relationship with your supervisor, you will be able to learn new ways of doing things, feel resilience to the required challenge that you will be offered to help bring a new awareness of yourself, learn where you have gaps in your knowledge, be able to face the challenges of dilemmas together so that you feel supported, safe and ultimately be a safe and ethical therapist for your clients. I am not an ‘expert’ and cannot know everything about any subject or modality and I will learn alongside you.

The reason I trained to be a supervisor is to offer what the best of the people I have worked with offer. Working together as colleagues in an equal relationship where you feel encouraged, curious, authentic, have autonomy and can be congruent and feel humanity in what can be a challenging and at times a lonely profession. 

I feel that supervision should be something that you look forward to and that you can, in times of feeling unsure, trust that it is OK to show the parts of yourself and your work that you are not feeling confident with. 

I particularly love working with newly qualified therapists as I love the mentoring aspect of supervision that is needed. I remember feeling overwhelmed when I set up my own private practice and I didn’t know many of the finer details that are needed to be a legal and ethical practice or where to look for the information. So I can share my experience and offer guidance where required, as I believe that it is essential to offer support for running a business and taking care of clients within supervision, as they go hand in hand. 

I originally trained as a humanistic counsellor, including Person Centred, Gestalt and Existential modalities. As I have continued to develop as a therapist and supervisor, I have undertaken various courses and CPD to learn more about other modalities and work integratively and creatively to offer a service to therapists from different backgrounds and modalities. 

I offer in person sessions in my counselling cabin, online via Zoom and by phone. 

Choosing the right supervisor for you is important so I offer a free informal, in person chat so that we can see if we are a good fit and where I can answer any questions that you may have. Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss your supervision needs with me.