Lee Martin

About Me as a Supervisor
I provide clinical supervision for trainee counsellors, qualified counsellors and Low Intensity CBT Practitioners, face-to-face from my practice in Porthleven, Cornwall, near Helston, and online across the UK.

I believe supervision should be more than somewhere to present your client work or fulfil your required hours. At its best, it should be somewhere you can think out loud, be uncertain, reflect honestly and continue developing as a practitioner.

You don't need to arrive at supervision already knowing the answer.

Supervisees often bring much more than clinical questions. There can be self-doubt, imposter syndrome, ethical dilemmas, safeguarding and risk, difficult endings, boundaries, workload, mistakes, uncertainty and the emotional impact of sitting alongside trauma, grief and distress.

My aim is to provide a relationship where these things can be explored openly, without supervision becoming either judgemental or simply reassuring.

Supervision for trainees
If you're training or beginning placement, supervision can be one of the most important relationships in your development as a counsellor.

There should be space to ask the questions you worry you should already know the answer to, make sense of theory, explore client work and gradually develop confidence in your own judgement and identity as a therapist.

I want trainees to become their own therapist, rather than a version of their supervisor.

Newly qualified counsellors
The transition from training into qualified practice can bring a different set of challenges.

Supervision may include developing confidence in your clinical judgement, working with greater complexity, understanding your limits of competence, managing risk and boundaries, developing areas of special interest and finding a sustainable way of working.

For those moving into private practice, there can also be space to think about the professional realities of working independently, including boundaries, workload, fees, contracting and building a practice that remains ethical and sustainable.

Experienced practitioners
For experienced counsellors and therapists, supervision can provide somewhere to slow down and think more deeply about complex work.

Rather than simply asking “What should I do with this client?”, we can explore what may be happening within the therapeutic relationship, what the client brings, what you bring, and what might be occurring between you.

There is also space for professional development, ethical decision-making, the emotional impact of the work and maintaining curiosity when you've been doing this job for a long time.

My experience and approach
Alongside my work as a qualified Clinical Supervisor, I am a BACP Accredited Counsellor and EMDR Accredited Practitioner.

My professional background includes counselling and trauma work, education, drug and alcohol recovery, charitable services and private practice. My particular clinical interests include trauma and PTSD, men's mental health, anxiety, depression, grief and baby loss.

My own practice integrates counselling, CBT and EMDR, which allows me to bring perspectives from different therapeutic approaches while respecting the modality and way of working of the supervisee.

How I work as a supervisor
My supervision style is warm, collaborative and grounded, but that doesn't mean supervision should always be comfortable.

Good supervision sometimes involves asking difficult questions, noticing something we've missed, exploring our own responses to a client or considering whether we might need to do something differently.

I work primarily with the Seven-Eyed Model of Supervision, allowing us to consider the client, therapist, therapeutic relationship, supervisory relationship and wider systems surrounding the work.

There is room for clinical formulation, ethical decision-making, safeguarding and risk, boundaries, contracting and professional development, alongside something equally important: you, the practitioner doing the work.

How is the work affecting you? What are you noticing in yourself? Where are you confident? Where are you doubting yourself? What might you be avoiding?

Supervision should be somewhere those conversations are possible.

Finding the right supervisor
The supervisory relationship matters.

You need to feel safe enough to say “I don't know”, to acknowledge when something hasn't gone well and to bring the clients you find difficult, rather than only presenting the work you're proud of.

My role isn't to turn you into the therapist I would be.

It's to help you become the therapist you want to be, while supporting safe, ethical and thoughtful practice.

I offer clinical supervision face-to-face in Porthleven, Cornwall, near Helston, and online across the UK.

If you're looking for supervision that balances support, challenge, reflection and practical guidance, you're welcome to contact me for an initial conversation to see whether we might work well together.