From
2007 to 2015 I served as a clinical supervisor for the Valley Community Clinic in North Hollywood. And from 2005
to 2009 I served as a clinical supervisor for the Maple Counseling Center in Beverly Hills. Both of these facilities
offer affordable therapy to the local community. And both serve as training grounds for aspiring clinicians.
Serving
as supervisor has been a great pleasure. It has given me an opportunity to work with therapists-in-training
on the infinite subtleties of the clinical relationship. Generally speaking, the supervisee brings in a transcript
of a session. We go line by line through the transcript and think together about the emotional nuances of the
interaction. What is the patient feeling? What is the supervisee feeling? And how do these feelings inform
their dynamic? By raising awareness of these questions, the supervision is designed to promote skillful therapy
-- a benefit to the budding therapist and a boon to the patient.
It is the tradition with these types of clinics that supervisors
volunteer their services. This gives us a chance to reach out to the community. It also allows us to
lend a hand to the next generation of therapists as we were leant a hand by the generation before us. Either way,
it's a privilege to be able to make a contribution. In this way we can promote the health
and happiness of our neighbors.
