I offer clinical supervision to psychologists and therapists who work with couples and relational systems. The focus of this supervision is on the realities of couple work: heightened emotional intensity, competing narratives, in-room pressure, and the complexity of working with two nervous systems in constant interaction.

 

Couple therapy places specific demands on the clinician. Sessions escalate quickly, alliances are pulled for, and familiar frameworks can collapse under relational pressure. Feeling uncertain, stuck, or overwhelmed in this work is not a sign of inadequacy. It is a predictable feature of working inside live relational systems, particularly when patterns are entrenched or emotionally charged.

 

Supervision provides a structured space to think clearly under these conditions. The work is slowed down and examined without defensiveness, with attention to both the couple’s interaction and the therapist’s position within it. The aim is not to provide quick answers or techniques, but to support clarity, accountability, and deliberate clinical decision-making.

 

In supervision, couple cases are explored across multiple levels. This includes understanding what couples bring, how relational patterns organise the interaction, and how emotional and physiological intensity unfolds between partners and toward the therapist. Attention is given to formulation, in-room process, therapeutic stance, and the rationale behind interventions, so that clinical choices are grounded rather than reactive.

 

Risk, ethics, and responsibility are integral to this work. Couple therapy often involves ambiguity, power imbalances, and situations where there is no clean or comfortable decision. Supervision supports reflective and defensible thinking in these grey areas. While the clinician remains fully responsible for their decisions, supervision provides a disciplined space to test reasoning, clarify boundaries, and hold complexity without avoidance or overcontrol.

 

Reflective practice sits at the centre of supervision. Couple work inevitably activates the therapist as a person. Emotional reactions, bodily responses, alliances, and moments of frustration are part of the clinical field, not distractions from it. Supervision develops awareness of the personal–professional interface, helping clinicians distinguish what belongs to the couple from what is being evoked in them, and to use that awareness as a clinical resource.

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Supervision also supports the broader professional journey. This includes navigating teams and organisations, managing responsibility, maintaining boundaries, and developing confidence over time. For clinicians in the early years of practice, regular supervision is especially important as new contexts and pressures emerge. For experienced therapists, ongoing supervision remains a cornerstone of reflective and accountable couple work.

 

Supervision is offered as an ongoing process rather than a reactive intervention. Consistency allows patterns to be recognised, intensity to be contained, and clinical thinking to deepen over time. In the context of couple therapy, this steadiness is what allows therapists to remain present, regulated, and effective in the room.